Lawmakers, journalists to Supreme Court: Issue TRO vs. anti-terror law now

Lawyers for the lawmakers and journalists who filed one of the 29 petitions against the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 have urged the Supreme Court (SC) to immediately issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the law.

The Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG), representing Senators Francis Pangilinan and Leila De Lima and congressman Kit Belmonte and several others, have filed a motion for the court to resolve their application for a TRO.

They said recent official statements reaffirmed the need for a TRO, citing in particular a remark by military chief Lt. Gen. Gilbert Gapay on the regulation of social media in the law's implementing rules.

Gapay had claimed that terrorist groups have used social media to "radicalize" the youth. He later clarified that his proposal was to regulate social media platforms "on the content that they allow to be uploaded."

Several officials, including Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and some lawmakers, opposed Gapay's proposal. Lorenzana said regulating social media would violate the freedom of speech.

FLAG said Gapay's statements "betray the government's intention to regulate on the basis of content."

"This is prior restraint, undisguised by spin and unimpeded by the rule of law," the lawyers said.

FLAG claimed that regulating speech on social media will force ordinary citizens to self-censor, highlighting what it said was the chilling effect created by the law.

"In this eleventh hour, this Court stands as the last and only vanguard of our fragile democracy," FLAG said in the motion.

The lawyers said that unless the SC prevents the enforcement of the law, the basic rights of freedom of speech, expression, of the press, annd to peaceably assemble "will be irrevocably and irreversibly chilled and mangled beyond recognition."

The SC has yet to act on the several requests for a TRO against the anti-terrorism law.

The justices will meet on Tuesday for the regular en banc session, according to court spokesman Brian Keith Hosaka. —KBK, GMA News