LAST July 3, 2020, Pres. Duterte finally signed into law, the ‘Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020,’ now to be known as RA 11479.
No matter what other groups may claim to the contrary, its long, tumultuous ride, from deliberations during the 17th and 18th Congress, the immediate challenge on its legality filed by some groups at the Supreme Court last week, and, the many pummeling it received from the hands of critics, are all affirmation that democracy and the rule of law are alive, healthy and vibrant in our country.
For how explain that on its way to becoming a law, oppositors coming from all political colors, were allowed to express their dissenting position, in one form or another, without any arrest being made by the authorities?
If the critics are to be believed that RA 11479 is de facto martial law and the end to the people’s free exercise of their civil and political rights, then why are they still out there, free to criticize and demonize the government until now?
Having proven their accusations to be false, the next best thing for Filipinos to do is to move on. They should just focus on the actual merits and benefits that RA 11479 wants to contribute to the general peace and order of our country.
And the first step to doing this is for Filipinos to free their minds from all the dreadful thoughts daily being fed onto them by pseudo “people’s organizations,” particularly, the front organizations of the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed group, the New People’s Army (CPP-NPA).
For more than 50 years now, the CPP-NPA, thru these front organizations, have managed to distinguish themselves as the most corrosive force in our society. They have accomplished a lot in putting our country in a perpetual state of regression.
With our progress and development stunted, our society has become a fertile breeding ground for all sorts of demagoguery; it has become a rich source for recruits for their fake “revolution” and for the other terrorist groups too.
Seen in this light, let us be confident that RA 11479 aims to accomplish what it was intended to accomplish in the first place:
Effectively deal with acts of terrorism and to dismantle the infrastructures—organizational, logistical and financial– that enabled terrorist groups to sow mayhem and bloodshed for several decades now with near impunity.
Now that Congress and the government has fashioned a weapon to right the wrongs of the last 50 years, we should not hesitate to embrace and support it. We should not miss this chance. ###