PIMENTEL WARNS OF DANGERS OF USING ANONYMOUS
INFORMERS IN TAGGING TERRORIST SUSPECTS

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Nene Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today warned of a recourse by law enforcers to the Makapili-style tagging of terrorist suspects under the proposed Anti-Terrorist Act which may be susceptible to abuse and unwarranted violation of human rights of the innocent.

Pimentel said one of the major flaws in the Anti-Terrorist Act (Senate Bill 2137), which he wants amended, is a provision that will allow some unnamed persons or anonymous informers to tag others as participants or plotters of the crime of terrorism, which may result in the arrest and detention of the suspects without a court warrant or without formal charges.

He said that out of 88 amendments to the controversial bill, about 70 have been accepted by its sponsor, Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile.

The use of hooded ratters, stool pigeons, if you will, or faceless informers who can trigger the arrest and detention without judicial warrant of persons suspected of having committed terrorism recalls the evil facets of the Spanish Inquisition of the 14th century or the Makapili era during the Japanese occupation of our country, Pimentel said.

The minority leader said those anonymous informers or finger-pointers are technically witnesses against the suspect who he or she wont be able to confront as required by the Bill of Rights of the Constitution. Obviously, he said the use of anonymous witnesses has no place in modern, democratic society.

The bill, according to Pimentel, does not require that the identity of the informer should be revealed to and be recorded by the law enforcement authorities.

Neither does the bill require that the competence of the informer as a reliable source of information be first established before the authorities use the full force of the law to apprehend and prosecute the suspect, he said.

In fine, the bill grants the informer a virtually boundless power to cause injury to others by the simple expedient of labeling them as suspects of the crime of terrorism without incurring any responsibility for it, he said.

He said what worries him most is that suspects who are innocent of the allegations against them will be rendered defenseless especially if they are poor and have no connection with the authorities.

This is where the greatest danger lies because once you are tagged as a terrorist, you can be imprisoned without a court warrant and all your properties of whatever nature in the wording of the bill, including bank deposits, can be frozen or seized for as long as you are tagged as a terrorist, Pimentel said.

The cavalier way by which the bill tolerates suspects to be dragged into the criminal web of terrorism on the mere say so of anonymous informers should raise alarum bells. For in this country today, even without any anti-terrorism legislation, people are already being picked up, detained and tortured or, worse, killed extra-judicially.

Pimentel said the great danger is that once the bill becomes law, unless refined it will cripple the human rights and curtail the civil liberties of any person who is pointed to as a suspect in the crime of terrorism.