Mga ipokrito! Ping blasts US lawmakers seeking repeal of PH Anti-Terror Law

A bunch of hypocrites.

This was how Sen. Panfilo Lacson described the 50 or so members of the US Congress who called for the repeal of the Philippine Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 earlier this week.

Lacson asked how many of these lawmakers voted in favor of the US Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001, which he noted is cruel to some extent due to its emphasis on “security.”

“While our Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 is replete with safeguards to ensure that human rights of suspected terrorists are observed and protected, what the US Congress passed as their version of an Anti-Terrorism law is much stronger, even cruel to some extent because their policy makers and citizenry give the highest premium to the security of their country and the protection of US citizens stationed anywhere in the world,” Lacson, who sponsored the measure in the Senate, said in a statement on Friday.

“That said, these US Congress members should shut up unless they admit to being a bunch of hypocrites,” he added.

Lacson noted Republic Act 11479, the Anti-Terrorism Law signed by President Rodrigo Duterte last July 3, contains safeguards to protect the rights of suspected terrorists – including a more active role for the Commission on Human Rights.

In contrast, he said the US anti-terror law of 2001 has a provision for a Guantánamo Bay-like detention facility “where indefinite detention without trial of suspected terrorists, on top of torture and breach of human rights, suicides and suicide attempts have been reported by Amnesty International – all in violation of the Due Process Clause of the US Constitution.”

“And unlike their Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001, our law does not allow one-party consent in the conduct of electronic or technical surveillance,” he added.

Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)