📷 Photo courtesy of IBON Foundation
Independent think-tank IBON Foundation calls for the scrapping of the four-year-old Anti-Terror Law as it threatens “people’s assertion of their economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR).”
“IBON joins the clamor to repeal the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 (ATA), now in its fourth year, which has been arbitrarily used against individuals and organizations who are not terrorists but have been pushing for economic and political reforms that the government finds disagreeable. The people’s assertion of their economic, social, and cultural rights (ESCR) is threatened by this law whose overbroad definition and witch-hunting spirit has been used against those that the government wants [to be] silenced,” the think-tank said in a statement.
IBON also assailed Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s “posturing” as a human rights champion as he continues to implement the controversial ATA.
“Marcos perpetrates policies that neglect the country’s economic foundations, worsen citizens’ poverty and joblessness, destroy the environment, enrich the super-wealthy, and rob the people and the nation of its resources in favor of local oligarchs and their foreign partners,” it stated.
IBON also asserted even United Nations Special Rapporteurs on Freedom of Expression Irene Khan and on Climate Change Ian Fry (the latter recently stepped down) called ATA “harmful to the Filipino people,” and called for the amendment or repeal of its ‘abusive’ provisions.
“The Filipino people must not be prevented by weaponized laws from asserting their rights to livelihood, decent wages, adequate standards of living, social services and protection, unionization, a healthy environment, self-determination, and the range of civil and political rights and of economic, social and cultural rights,” IBON added. (NOEL SALES BARCELONA)
