Press Release
April 3, 2007

LAW ENFORCERS NOT HELPLESS IN GOING
AFTER TERRORISTS EVEN IF HSA IS TEMPORARILY SUSPENDED

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Nene Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today said the campaign against terrorism will not be impaired even if the Anti-Terrorism Act, officially called Human Security Act of 2007, is suspended during the election period.

Pimentel was reacting to the statement of National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales that the anti-terrorism campaign has been rendered inutile as a consequence of a provision in the HSA suspending the effectivity of this law one month before and two months after the May 14 national elections.

He said law enforcers can still rely on the Revised Penal Code in applying legal sanctions against terror suspects while the HSA is suspended. As a matter of fact, he said almost all the criminal offenses punishable under the HSA are already covered by the Revised Penal Code.

National Security Adviser Gonzales seems to believe that it is only through the Anti-Terror Law that we can fight terrorism. He doesnt know that there are other laws that can do so even if the HSA is suspended during the elections, Pimentel said.

His blinders bode ill for the nation. GMA needs a deeper thinker as national security adviser, not a hollow schemer.

Pimentel stressed that the safeguards against violation of human rights were inserted into this legislation to ensure that it is not abused by law enforcers in view of present condition when extra-judicial killings of activists and other personalities are rampant.

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