Drilon moves to relax quarantine penal provisions in Bayanihan law

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon moved Friday to repeal penal provisions in Section 3 of the Bayanihan law granting the executive extra powers to deal with the virus contagion.

“I have no problem with granting the executive leeway in realignment of funds in so far as medicines are concerned to expedite purchases of necessary goods and services,” he said.

Drilon added that, “conceptually,” he can even support passage of an enabling legislation extending the Bayanihan law even as he raised “reservations” on its criminal provisions.

“Conceptually, I can support the extension of the Bayanihan law,”which gave President Duterte special spending authority to deal with the Covid-19 contagion, Drilon said, even as he voiced serious reservations in reenacting Section 6 on its penal provision for criminal acts during the quarantine period.

This prompted Sen. Juan edgardo Angara to assert that the Bayanihan 2 was not meant to be a criminal statute.

“But because it was meant as a special law, we cannot claim lack of criminal intent,”angara added.

At that point, one of the original author of the Bayanihan law, Sen. Pia Cayetano, felt compelled to specify particular criminal acts deemed so egregious, or heinous that the minimal penalties under the penal code would not suffice.

Cayetano cited as example the sale of fake quarantine passes on recto Avenue in Manila and the sale of recycled personal protective equipment (Ppes), saying such acts“throw out the window all the measures done to protect the people from Covid-19.”

“I have extreme reservations about renewing Section 6 because of what we have seen as the way it is implemented by those who are in charge. We have seen how law enforcers have used this provision to arrest people for acts which otherwise would not justify arrest without warrants,” Drilon said during a Senate hearing on the possible extension of ra 11469.

The heal as One law, or Bayanihan Act, provided for emergency powers in order to implement necessary public policies in response to the contagion.