SC petitioners hit the ‘fatally flawed’ TIR of anti-terrorism law by lobbying for TRO

MANILA— A group of petitioners against the anti-terrorism law led by veteran journalist Ma. Ceres Doyo and Senators Leila de Lima and Francis Pangilinan asked the Supreme Court on Thursday once again to act on their petition to stop the implementation of the law. .

Another group of petitioners against the Antiterrorist Law led by journalist Ces Doyo, Senators Leila de Lima and Francis Pangilinan, ask the Supreme Court to immediately resolve their TRO request, citing the release of the TIR that “sank further into its hole unconstitutional”. pic.twitter.com/vEJgkcKsmI

– Mike Navallo (@mikenavallo) October 29, 2020

In a very urgent motion to resolve the TRO request submitted by Free Legal Assistance Group, Doyo and the other petitioners argued that the issuance of the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of the Anti-Terrorism Law has only made restricting its application be ” doubly urgent ”Since the law affects freedom of expression and expression.

“This Honorable Court has repeatedly held that a law that restricts expression based on content, in fact, is presumed unconstitutional, and such presumption merits the immediate issuance of a TRO by the Supreme Court to preserve sacrosanct constitutional rights,” they said. the petitioners. .

Calling the TIR “as fatally flawed as the ATA,” the petitioners said the TIR could only exacerbate violations of constitutional rights.

“In Rule 4.9 of the IRR, for example, the government delved into its unconstitutional hole by adding circumstances that must be considered to determine the ‘reasonable probability of success’: context, speaker / actor, intention, content and form, scope of the speech or act, and the causality ”, they said.

“Hence, the law, as the government itself expressly admits through the IRR, restricts freedom of expression based on content,” they added.

The petitioners also argued that the TIR usurped the legislative power reserved by the Constitution to Congress by introducing new provisions that are not in the law, such as employing the “reasonable probability of success” test, lowering the probable cause threshold from the standard of a “reasonable man”. “To” cautious person “and a procedure and reasons for excluding from the list a person or group designated as a terrorist by the Antiterrorist Council.

“Under the pretext of providing mere guidelines for application, the TIR extends and amplifies the constitutional violations inherent in the ATA. An unconstitutional law cannot be enforced, nor can it be cured by equally unconstitutional rules adopted by an overly enthusiastic and exaggerated executive. If the stream cannot rise higher than its source, the fetid water must also remain at the bottom of the swamp, ”the group said.

Citing “clear and imminent danger to freedom of expression,” they filed a petition challenging the constitutionality of the Antiterrorist Law in July, asking for a temporary restraining order to stop not only the implementation of the law but also the issuance of the IRR. .

They urged the high court to act on their guilty plea in August, citing statements by Philippine Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gilbert Gapay that they intend to include social media in regulation under the ATA.

Gapay would later clarify that he was referring to regulating social media companies, not users.

There are no provisions under the ATA IRR specifically on social media, but critics have pointed out that the vague provisions of the law and the IRR alone would allow it to be applied to social media posts.

The petitioners asserted that allowing the application of the ATA through the IRR “can only lead to the real and generalized restriction by the state of the constitutional right to freedom of expression and expression.”

“Only the judicial branch of the Honorable Court stands between the people and the imminent terror announced by the ATA and its TIR. The petitioners pray to the Court to exercise power, ”they said.

Thirty-seven groups of petitioners have challenged the Anti-Terrorism Law before the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta previously said that they should be able to announce the date of oral arguments in mid-November.