Jesuit Co-founder Of Political Party In The Philippines

Subversion law to stay buried -- defense chief
By Nikko Dizon, Christian V. Esguerra, Jerome Aning, Nestor P. Burgos Jr.Visayas Bureau, InquirerLast updated 11:41pm (Mla time) 12/17/2007
MANILA, Philippines -- Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro said Monday the modernization of the Armed Forces of the Philippines was more important than the revival of the Anti-Subversion Law, adding that it was an issue that would “spawn a lot of controversy and debate.” “I’d like to think about it very well,” Teodoro told reporters when asked if he would support the revival of Republic Act No. 1700, which was repealed in 1992 to pave the way for the government’s peace talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA). “To me, as secretary of national defense, equally important or more important, is the means to enforce the law, meaning to say, our fill-up rate in terms of personnel and our modernization and capability upgrade,” he said. The defense chief admitted that with such a law, the Armed Forces and the police would have an easier time addressing the insurgency problem. “But would the body politic want it? That’s another question,” he said. The idea of Representative Jose Solis of Sorsogon, an NPA-infested province, to revive the Anti-Subversion Law to stamp out the country’s decades-old insurgency problem was initially supported by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. But Malacañang quickly backtracked on the law’s revival after it encountered vehement protests from lawmakers, human rights victims and civil liberty advocates. Senate President Manuel Villar said the Senate would shut down any bill that would revive the Anti-Subversion Law even if the President supported it. “Most of the senators are against it. There is no place for it in the present time,” Villar told reporters in Iloilo City on Sunday before he opened the Iwag Festival in Pototan. “Reviving RA 1700 is retrogressive. It is like going back to the primitive years when we labeled people as communists and insurgents. It will be a throwback to the Jurassic era when mere membership in a group was grounds for punishment when what should be sanctioned are overt illegal acts and not mere organizational affiliation,” Villar said later in a statement. Deputy Minority Leader and Bayan Muna Representative Satur Ocampo, who went underground during martial law, on Monday said the revival of the Anti-Subversion Law would not solve the insurgency problem. Ocampo warned that it would only lead to “massive warrantless arrests, search and seizures, illegal detention, and worsen the sorry state of human rights in the country.” Speaker Jose de Venecia expressed his categorical opposition to the President’s plan, saying it was not the way to solve the decades-old communist insurgency in the country. “I am against the revival of the Anti-Subversion Law,” he told reporters in a press conference. De Venecia, who had been at odds with the President over the recent broadband network scandal, said he was instead supporting her amnesty proclamation covering the Communist Party of the Philippines.

The Speaker said using the Anti-Subversion Law to crush insurgency would only
drive Leftist groups from the “parliamentary process.” So far in the Philippines, at least six congressmen identified with the Left have brought their struggle inside the walls of parliament. Reviving the Anti-Subversion Law at this time would not greatly help the government in its campaign to end the communist insurgency, according to Jesuit priest Fr. Romeo Intengan, cofounder of the Partido Demokratiko Sosyalista ng Pilipinas, which has links to National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales

. Intengan, in a statement, said: “A law like RA 1700 by itself is a two-edged sword. It will be helpful only if government political and military intelligence is excellent, if police investigators, state prosecutors and judges are sufficiently competent and courageous, and the citizenry is cooperative. Otherwise, the CPP will simply go underground and set up new front organizations and economic conduits harder to detect than before.”

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