This provision not only implies guilt on the part of the accused. It also makes people guilty of association because their properties could be seized, sequestered or frozen just for being members of outlawed organizations (the proscription of which is also questionable).

As stated, authorities should undertake preventive measures to ensure peace and order. But detention premised on suspicion of involvement in a future crime is unacceptable in a supposedly democratic society that operates, among others, on the presumption of innocence among those accused. Restricting the suspects’ right to travel and depriving them of their right to privacy also do not bode well for a government that is supposed to protect and uphold civil rights of all people, including those charged with crimes. What proves to be worse is people being presumed guilty by association and consequently penalized by seizing, sequestering and freezing their assets.

Analyzing the questionable provisions of the HSA, one therefore does not take solace from the fact that there are “safeguards” in place like the penalty for being wrongly accused of terrorism. The first paragraph of Section 50 states:

Upon acquittal, any person who is accused of terrorism shall be entitled to the payment of damages in the amount of Five hundred thousand pesos (P500,000) for every day that he or she has been detained or deprived of liberty or arrested without a warrant as a result of such an accusation.

That a wrongly accused person detained for a maximum of three days, for example, shall receive P1.5 million ((436,701 at an exchange rate of $1=P40.87) in damages does not erase the fact that his or her civil and political rights have been violated. No amount of money can compensate for the deprivation of one’s rights.

Perhaps even more importantly however is that Section 50 may not actually provide a safeguard but could conceivably result in an increase in extrajudicial killings. Given the culture of impunity in which the killings of activists and journalists happen, the authorities could be prompted to just summarily execute the wrongly accused so that they do not have to pay the P500,000 ($12,233) penalty for every day of detention.

HSA amid the culture of impunity

The HSA was enacted at a time when extrajudicial killings and other forms of human rights violations are said to be rampant. The recent report of Philip Alston, the United Nation’s (UN) Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, on his mission to the Philippines from February 12 to 21, 2007 maintained the Philippine military was involved in the killings. “The military is in a state of denial concerning the numerous extrajudicial executions in which its soldiers are implicated,” Alston said.

In the context of the culture of impunity and the media situation, he said, “Journalists are killed with increasing frequency as a result of the prevailing impunity as well as the structure of the media industry.”

While the killings of both activists and journalists are happening in increasing frequency under the Macapagal-Arroyo administration, Alston stressed that these appear to have different causes. In the case of the journalists, most of the killings are said to have had “local roots.” Alston said:

Some killings had been perpetrated to prevent journalists from exposing information related to the crimes and corruption of powerful individuals. Other killings resulted from local disputes in which the journalists had participated by publicly promoting one side or the other. This problem is exacerbated by the structure of the media industry. Many broadcasters are “block-timers” who purchase airtime and then pay for this airtime and seek a profit by selling advertising. Sometimes they also earn money through so-called “AC/DC” journalism – “attack, collect; defend, collect”. Approximately three quarters of journalists killed are broadcasters, and nearly half of these are block-timers. Needless to say, however questionable the practices of some journalists may be, these do not justify murder. There is a lamentable degree of impunity for murders of journalists.

The culture of impunity prevailing in Philippine society is manifested not only by the increasing number of activists and journalists killed. Even if the numbers are very significant, the manner in which the killings have happened also needs to be considered.

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