DFA Sec. Locsin backs anti-terror bill

Published June 22, 2020 12:05 PM Updated June 23, 2020 04:28 PM By LLANESCA T. PANTI,GMA News

Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro "Teddyboy" Locsin, Jr. is in favor of the passage of the anti-terror bill, saying that it provides for appropriate response in case of a terrorism attack. 

Locsin was referring to the measure which seeks to replace the Human Security Act, the country's existing law against terrorism. Among other provisions, the bill allows authorities to detain individuals from 14 to 24 days based on suspicion of being a terrorist. 

"I refused to allow the definition of a terrorist, because once you do that, then it raises the question that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. So what we do I said is we list the acts that we regard as terrorists and which have this peculiar quality. The quality is mass carnage committed against innocent civilians." Locsin said in an ANC interview. 

The anti-terror bill, which has been certified urgent by President Rodrigo Duterte

 and is now awaiting his signature to become a law, also criminalizes the act inciting to terrorism through speeches, proclamations, writings, emblems, banners, or other representations.

It also removes the existing P500,000 a day penalty on police officers who will detain suspects eventually acquitted of the crime. 

The bill drew sharp opposition among activists, human rights workers, members of the academe, journalists, business groups, among others, over fears that authorities may use it to have a crackdown on government critics or tag exercise of rights as an act of terrorism with no accountability.

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra however said the Department of Justice will "more clearly" define the parameters of how it should be enforced should the anti-terrorism bill become a law. —KG/KBK, GMA News

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