House panel pushes wiretap bill
The House Committee on Dangerous Drugs, chaired by Iligan Rep. Vicente Belmonte Jr., is batting for the final approval of a measure seeking to allow law enforcers to wiretap in drug cases.
Belmonte said House Bill 6107, which substitutes HB 5839, which he principally authored, amends Section 3 of Republic Act No. 4200 or the law which prohibits and penalizes wire tapping and other related violations of the privacy of communication.
Under Committee Report No. 864, the Belmonte panel batted for the final passage of HB 6107, which authorizes wiretapping in cases involving violations of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 upon a written order of the Regional Trial Court within whose territorial jurisdiction the acts for which authority is applied for are to be executed.
The measure was approved by the House panel last month and was recently approved on second reading by the House.
Belmonte said they come up with simpler version so that it could immediately gain the approval of the Senate.
RA 4200 authorizes law enforcers to wiretap in cases involving the crimes of treason, espionage, provoking war and disloyalty in case of war, privacy, mutiny in the high seas, rebellion, conspiracy and proposal to commit rebellion, inciting to rebellion, sedition, conspiracy to commit sedition, inciting to sedition, and kidnapping.
It does include the violations of Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.
“There is a need to elevate violations of the drug law as a threat to national security and amend RA 4200, the anti-wiretapping law,” Belmonte said.
The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and the Dangerous Drugs Board have strongly rallied behind the House measure.
In separate position papers submitted to the Belmonte panel, PDEA Director General Arturo Cacdac Jr. and DDB Executive Director Jose Marlowe Pedregosa expressed their agencies’ full support to HB 6107.
“Since 2012, the PDEA has been advocating for the enactment of wiretapping into law as a tool in drug enforcement to identify and secure evidence against the drug traffickers,” Cacdac said.
“We strongly agree to authorize wiretapping in cases of violations of RA 9165 (Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002), considering that our foreign counterpart drug agencies rely heavily on this tool since most high profile and high level drug syndicate leaders, financiers, protectors, and members are often only identified and/or arrested through said means,” Cacdac said.
Cacdac said they are fully supportive of the bill to cover all prohibited acts prescribed in RA 9165 that will be subject of authorized wiretapping.
Pedregosa is also urging Congress to enact into law the bill as soon as possible.