Five years of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) of 2020 and 13 years of its evil twin, the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act (TFPSA), have proven that they are grave threats to democracy and to the exercise of civil liberties and fundamental rights guaranteed by the Philippine Constitution and international human rights treaties and norms. From Duterte’s enactment to Marcos Jr.’s full implementation through the Anti-Terrorism Council, these laws have been used as blunt instruments to enforce State terror with impunity in communities, to threaten and harass groups and individuals, and to criminalize dissent and activism.
At least 227 individuals have already been charged with violating the ATA and the TFPSA, using vague or patently baseless accusations. Thirty-four peace consultants, personalities of the revolutionary movement, and indigenous peoples leaders and advocates have been arbitrarily designated as “terrorists.” Thirty are behind bars, including community journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio, development workers Marielle Domequil and Emilio Gabales, church worker Aldeem Yañez, and environmental activist Miguela Peniero. Three of them—Elgene Mungcal, Norman Ortiz and Lee Sudario—have been forcibly disappeared. The cases, affecting a broad spectrum of society, reveal a sinister pattern of instilling fear and suppressing dissent.
The TFPSA has moreover provided a legal pretext to freeze the assets and disrupt the operations of development organizations assisting marginalized and severely deprived communities, done often in the absence of due process and clear evidenciary standards. To date, the operations of the Negros-based Paghida-et Development Group (PDG), the Cebu-based Community Empowerment and Resource Network (Cernet), Leyte Center for Development (LCDe) and the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines, to name a few, have ground to a halt or have been impaired because of freeze orders on their bank accounts.
Taken together, the ATA and the TFPSA are doing what they purport to combat. By equating dissent and activism with terrorism and criminalizing critical thought, mobilizations for justice and defense of human rights, they send a chilling message and a wave of terror on the general populace. They are dangerous tools of political repression, wielded to intimidate and to silence.
The ATA and TFPSA pose direct threats to freedom of expression, freedom of association, and the right to due process. They legitimize political persecution under the guise of protecting national security. In targeting activists, community organizers, journalists and other dissenting voices using broad and vague definitions of terrorism, these laws are nothing but instruments to violate the rights, harass and red-tag those who speak out against injustice.
Meanwhile, Marcos Jr.’s regime integrates the use of the ATA and TFPSA with its national security blueprint implemented by the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) to engender further atrocities and violations of human rights and international humanitarian law especially in the rural communities. As the Armed Forces of the Philippines conduct bombings, indiscriminate firing and military encampment, communities are under de facto martial law, while the government’s whole of nation approach through civilian agencies provides the smokescreen for military abuses.
No society that claims to be democratic can thrive under the shadow of fear and repression created by these laws. We must assert our rights and demand accountability from those who have tried to hold us in the grip of terror.
We demand a stop to the persecution, an end to the weaponization of the ATA and the TFPSA and the immediate repeal of these draconian laws.