MANILA – Petitioners of the controversial Anti-Terrorism Act has not yet presented an “actual case” that would lead the Supreme Court (SC) justices to abolish the measure according to Associate Justice Marvic Leonen.
The Associate Justice said it is still not the right time for the SC to step in since none of the Anti-Terror Law petitioners have personally suffered from the implementation of the law during the oral arguments for the controversial law on Tuesday.
“Personally, I truly understand the kinds of fears that you are undergoing, having undergone those fears myself when I was a public interest lawyer,” Leonen said in his debate with law professor Alfredo Molo III who serves as counsel for petitioners.
“But with the hat now of the Justice of this Court, and with this judiciary, I think it is correct for us to assume that we should be careful not to become a political department,” he added.
In his statement over Molo, he said the petitioners should have waited for their allegations to “ripen into actual cases” before filing a legal challenge.
The law professor, however, argued that people can invoke expanded judicial review “when the law itself is clearly against the Bill of Rights.”
“If you want to read it, looking at government as evil or demonic, or with no intention at all except to do what is wrong, then you’re probably right,” replied Leonen, an often dissenter in the High Court.
“In the absence of clear and convincing demonstration that the Constitution has been violated, voiding the law would be an advisory opinion,” he added.
The magistrate also questioned the petitioners’ sentiment that the vague and overly broad definition of terrorism would chill the public into silence.
Even when there is an inciting to sedition provision in the Revised Penal Code, the magistrate stated this “was not enough to chill” the millions of Filipinos who gathered in the 1986 People Power Revolution.
“The Anti-Terrorism Act is even better as it clarifies that advocacy, protest, dissent, and similar exercises of civil and political rights will not be considered terrorism as long as they are not intended to endanger a person or create a serious risk to public safety,” Leonen stated. /PN
