“I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; From where shall my help come? My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.” (Psalms 121:1-2)
In democratic societies, a system of checks and balances guarantees the stability, integrity. and credibility of its governance and government.
Our tripartite system, made up of the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of government, imposes upon each branch the obligation to be a Guardian of our Democracy.
Each branch is tasked to guard against abuse, it is tasked to guard against corruption, but, most of all, it is required to guard the Constitution, to be faithful in guaranteeing that the people are free to enjoy their civil rights and their physical liberty.
This is the essence of being separate, but co-equal branches of government. This is what is required for one branch to be a check and balance against the other two.
For instance, the effectiveness of our separation of powers was recently put to the test by the enactment of RA 11479, the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA).
The ATA is perceived by many as an undue delegation of judicial power upon the executive branch.
Consequently, the passage of the ATA invited more than 30 petitions to render either the whole or parts of it unconstitutional.
On Dec. 9, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of the Anti-Terrorism Act, except for portions of Sec. 4 and a portion of Sec. 25. All the other challenged provisions of the ATA are deemed constitutional.
Sec. 4 deals with excluding mass actions and similar exercise of civil and political rights from the definition of ‘terrorism’; while Sec. 25 deals with requests by foreign agencies or bodies to designate persons as terrorists and terrorist organizations.
The Court, by a 12-3 vote, declared the qualifier portion of Sec. 4, “which are not intended to cause death or serious physical harm to a person, to endanger a person’s life, or to create a serious risk to public safety” as unconstitutional for being over-broad and violative of freedom of expression.
Also ruled unconstitutional by a vote of 9-6 was a portion of Sec. 25, paragraph 2 which allows “request for designations by other jurisdictions or supranational jurisdictions may be adopted by the ATC after determination that the proposed designee meets the criteria for designation of UNSCR.”
It seems that the Court’s action as regards the ATA was a step backward in protecting the Filipino citizen’s civil rights.
For instance, the ATA created an Anti-Terrorism Council, headed by a member of the Executive branch. Under the ATA, the Council can designate individuals and organizations as terrorists without any hearing, as long as it determines “probable cause”, a judicial process exercised through judicial power.
Thus the Anti-Terrorism Council, under the ATA, can find that persons are likely to commit, attempt to commit, or are part of a conspiracy to commit acts defined and penalized as terrorism under Sec. 4-12 of the law.
This finding renders these suspected persons susceptible to arrest and detention, without being guaranteed the protection of the courts.
The designation as a terrorist by the Council allows the Anti-Money Laundering Council to freeze the assets of the individuals or organizations, violating a person’s right against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Another contested provision is Sec. 27, which allows the appellate court to issue a preliminary order of proscription within three days if it finds probable cause to declare a suspect as terrorist or an organization as outlawed.
It has six months to conduct hearings, and decide whether to lift the order or make it permanent.
Sec. 29 allows the warrantless arrest and detention without charges of suspected terrorists for up to 24 days — as long as the law enforcement agent or military personnel are authorized in writing by the Anti-Terrorism Council.
The Human Security Act previously allowed a pre-trial detention of up to three days only.
So you see, the Supreme Court appears to have glossed cover the more substantive and glaringly-unconstitutional provisions of the ATA.
In effect, our Honorable Justices have joined a conspiracy, with Duterte and his obeisant lawmakers, to create a police state in the land of democratic space and free expression.
So who guards the guardians of our freedom and civil liberties?
When institutions fail, the ballot is often the last resort. So we must guard the guardians against corrupt influences, and stand fast at the City’s towers.
When you vote, choose wisely, lest the tyrant steal our resolve, and buy or coerce our votes at the precincts!
“Then he made a covenant with them and put them under oath in the house of the Lord, and showed them the king’s son. He commanded them, saying, “This is the thing that you shall do: one third of you, who come in on the sabbath and keep watch over the king’s house (one third also shall be at the gate Sur, and one third at the gate behind the guards), shall keep watch over the house for defense.” (2 Kings 11:4-6)
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