Ambiguity in the Law: The Staunchest Enemy of Human Rights
Written by Katreena Dulay
The Duterte Administration holds the highest record on the total cases of killings of law practitioners, in comparison to the figures of the past 6 administrations combined. A total of 61 lawyers were killed since Duterte took office in 2016, a sky-high figure when compared to the 28 cases from 1972 to 2016 encompassing the administrations of Ferdinand Marcos, Corazon Aquino, Fidel Ramos, Joseph Estrada, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and Benigno Aquino III. Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) was also able to report that among the aforementioned 61 cases of killings, 26 were identified as work-related, 15 as drug-related, 12 due to personal motives, as the other 15 cases remained unknown.
Simultaneous with these killings are cases of unwarranted arrests and red-tagging of law practitioners. Calbayog Regional Trial Court reported receiving a request from local police, as compliance from “higher offices,” to provide the names of the lawyers who represent what the request called “communist terrorist groups.”
The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) is included among the organizations red-tagged over the past years with the common accusation of the organization as members or sympathizers of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the New People’s Army (NPA), and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). At General Luna Street in Iloilo City, Panay Today reported the attack of Atty. Angelo Karlo Guillen, Secretary-General of the Panay chapter, and Assistant Vice President for Visayas of NUPL, by unidentified suspects with a screwdriver on the night of March 3. Among the cases Guillen was handling are the December 2020 Tumandok incident in Capiz and the organization’s petition against Republic Act №11479 (Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020).
On Human Rights Day, the police arrested Lady Ann Salem, editor of red-tagged alternative publication Manila Today and a founding member of Altermidya, along with trade unionist Rodrigo Esparago and 5 others over the usual charges against activists: alleged illegal possession of firearms and explosives, a case junked by the Mandaluyong Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 209 last 5th of March, declaring that the search warrants presented against them void as per copy of the order to their lawyers from the Public Interest Law Center (PILC). According to the report, the search warrant only indicated 4 units of .45 caliber pistols, 2 units of .38 caliber pistols, magazine and ammunition, and 1 unit each of a laptop and cellphone, yet the police grabbed 4 laptops and 5 cellphones during the search. The court declared that items not listed in the search warrant cannot be seized, hence in a statement, the court pointed out the vagueness of the search, “Not knowing which cellphone and laptop they were supposed to seize, they took all that they found. This clearly shows that the Search Warrant suffered from vagueness. They undertook a ‘fishing expedition to seize and confiscate’ any and all cellphones and laptops they found in the premises,”.
Days after the verdict on the charges, Judge Monique Quisumbing-Ignacio of the Mandaluyong City Regional Trial Court, the judge who decided on the dismissal, was placed in a tarpaulin along EDSA with the logos of the NPA, CPP, and NDFP with the words at the top, “Thank you very much Judge Monique Quisumbing- Ignacio, RTC Branch 209, Mandaluyong City, for the swift release of our comrades Lady Ann Salem and Rodrigo Esparago. Onward with the struggle! Long live!”.
Red-tagging and the ambiguity of the law
The rise in the number of cases of killings of law practitioners in the country, not to mention that some of these practitioners are affiliated with groups prone to red-tagging by the administration, displays an administration that hardly gives significance to human rights and the mandates of the laws. It is depicted how the administration can easily manipulate laws into their favor, laws specifically that were vaguely written. Anti-Terror Law for one played a part in making these unlawful arrests and killings take place.
Section 4 of the Anti-Terror Law states what acts would count as terrorism and who are considered doers of such acts, is vague in that there are no specified actual actions that can be considered as acts of terror (e.g. bomb threatening). An example would be its condition, “when the purpose of such act, by its nature and context, is to intimidate the general public or a segment thereof, create an atmosphere or spread a message of fear, to provoke or influence by intimidation the government or any international organization.”; the provision did not state what acts would count as intimidation. Hence, anyone, even Judge Quisimbing-Ignacio can be accused of terrorism as she was branded as a supporter of the groups involved. This ambiguity makes it possible for enforcers to manipulate the scope of their operations depending on their targeted personalities- persons affiliated with groups branded by the government as communist terrorist groups. In these cases, the ones targeted were not only persons with such affiliations but persons who have the power, knowledge, and voice to sustain and protect the rights of the people under the directives of the law. This goes to show how the proactivity of the administration does not lie in ensuring that laws are executed for their claimed purpose of guaranteeing the safety of the citizens, but instead on how these laws can be translated in a manner that can debilitate those who dare to be consistent with the true purpose of the law- that is the protection of rights, infusing the power to the administration.
This ongoing issue has taken its toll on the citizens. Countless killings, illegal arrests, unresolved cases of murder- which in a few cases were the makings of the police, have transpired alongside a global crisis which the administration should have been focusing on solving, instead of taking its effort in muzzling critics. Moreover, due to the terror instilled by the aforementioned cases of killings and red-tagging to our legal practitioners, even to our judges, the judicial system is enfeebled. The recent events are an impediment to the execution of the duties of our lawyers and judges, considering that their lives are placed at stake. Human rights- the basic rights and freedoms that belong to every person in the world, because of this is going down in flames. Boundaries are compromised primarily due to provisional ambiguousness that makes the law susceptible to tweaking and twisting.
This is, therefore, a call for the Philippine government to immediately act on these inhumane killings. Our lawyers bring great honor in upholding the laws, which must primarily be upheld by the administration itself. The killing of these respected practitioners shows indeed the problems of our institutions on law implementation, and how these laws are used. It is always a question of whether these laws are interpreted and implemented with the very purpose of protecting the welfare of the Filipinos or whether the law itself is used to dispatch those who adamantly execute the law supposedly made for the people.
