Anti-terror law challengers oppose Calida bid to cancel oral arguments

Some of the petitioners challenging the anti-terrorism law before the Supreme Court (SC) have opposed Solicitor General Jose Calida's request for the tribunal to cancel oral arguments on the heavily contested law.

Progressive organizations led by Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) alongside several Sangguniang Kabataan officials asked the SC to push through with the oral arguments.

These groups are behind two of the more than 30 petitions against the anti-terrorism law, which took effect in July amid criticism that it could violate basic rights and empower the government to go after activists.

"Cancelling the oral arguments will be a disservice to the overwhelming public interest in these cases," they said in a 22-page joint opposition to the Office of the Solicitor General's (OSG) motion.

The OSG last month urged the SC to cancel oral arguments on the grounds of logistical restrictions and health risks amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The SC earlier announced that the court will hear oral arguments on the case in the third week of September, at the earliest. No other details have been announced.

In their opposition, the petitioners said the public has the right to examine and discuss how the government will defend the assailed law during the oral arguments.

"Interestingly, for the proponents of a law that has been so 'unfairly stigmatized,' Respondents are averse to throwing light on the same through the oral arguments," they said in the court filing.

"It seems that by refusing to be subjected under public scrutiny, Respondents intend to obscure the law, which operates in the shadows," they added.

Citing the SC's record of authorizing video conference hearings and meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic, the petitioners also said that the court is capable of conducting oral arguments in a way that will not endanger the participants' health.

They also defended their stance following the OSG's claim that their petitions were anchored on the "strawman of hypothetical abuse."

They said members of mass organizations affiliated with Bayan have been surveiled, gotten death threats, accused of links to communist rebels, and in the case of activists Randall Echanis and Zara Alvarez, killed.

"Clearly, there is nothing 'hypothetical' about the 'abuse' that petitioners will be facing, not as a matter of supposition, but of certainty, having been classified as 'terrorists' and dealt with, as such, in the foulest ways possible," the petitioners said. —KBK, GMA News