Duterte has no power to say who are terrorists, says lawmaker

MANILA: President Rodrigo “Rody” Duterte is not empowered by law to proscribe or designate groups as terrorist organizations and if he did so, that could be considered only as his “personal opinion,” according to an administration senator and principal author of the controversial Anti-terrorism Act.

Senator Panfilo “Ping’ Lacson said that instead the only one authorized by law to make such declaration was the Court of Appeals but only ater its full intervention complete with due notice notice and hearing.

Lacson was reacting to the statement of Duterte in his nationwide televised address on Wednesday morning in which he declared the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed component the New People’s Army (NPA) as terrorist groups.

Under the controversial law, only the appellate court could order the declaration and not the president or the Anti-terrorism Counci, said Lacson as he was supported by another Duterte ally Senator Ronald dela Rosa.who said: “What the president said are his views.”

“If in declaring a group, organization or association as terrorist organizatikon, the president is referring to its proscription, there is judicial process involved. This means full court intervention via the Court of Appeals compete with due notice and hearing,” Lacson pointed out.

“Furtermore, the burden of proof,” Lacson said, “lies with the Department of Justice. Even membership in a prosribed terrorist group goes through the same process which the justice department has to prove.”

The CPP-NPA launched a Maoist-style rebellion for more than 50 years, considered the longest in Asia and the Pacific and which resulted in the killings not only of thousands of policemen and soldiers but also innocent civilians in the countryside.

But the Anti-money Laundering Council (AMLC) urged the government to implement immediately the law whose legality has been questioned before the Supreme Court by least four petitioners, led by opposition Congressman Edcel Lagman of Albay province in the Bicol Region.