Human Security Act: A Reaction

By signing the Human Security Act of 2007 into law, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo claims that this is a great measure to curb insurgency and terrorism in the country. The act will penalize terrorism with life imprisonment without eligibility for parole. It gives law enforcement agencies more teeth in going after suspected terrorists and monitoring possible funding for terrorist attacks. It shall be the basis for more effective anti-terrorism measures that are intended to not only crush the terrorist movement in the country but also to keep it away from Philippine shores. The law would also make the government "more effective in fighting terrorism" with South-East Asian neighbors.

Civil rights and leftist activists oppose the Human Security Act because it authorizes the 72-hour detention of suspects without charge and allows for surveillance, wiretapping and seizure of assets. They claim that it could be used by the government of President Gloria Arroyo to stifle political dissent by persons or groups simply expressing legitimate democratic concerns under the cover of anti-terror operations. A petition calling for the Philippine Supreme Court to review the law has been presented, and rights groups are urging the government to suspend the new law until the high court rules or amendments are pushed through Congress.

The government contends that, while under this new law, suspected terrorists can be detained without charges for three days, it contains built-in measures for reparations for persons wrongfully detained to receive about 10,000 dollars for each day of detention. Still, many fear that the law could be used to crack down political dissent and opposition against the government just the same.

Just one week after the promulgation of the new law, government security officials said that they would seek several amendments in the Human Security Act of 2007. They believe that the reparation clause is too much burden for the government’s budget to bear. Instead of P 500,000 for every day of wrongful detention, they propose that it could be amended to P200,000 capped at two million pesos.

In the final analysis, just at the onset of the Human Security Act of 2007 enactment, it is already reviled from one extreme as an act “too little, too late” and on the other extreme as “too much, too soon”.