{"id":258260,"date":"2020-06-17T00:28:52","date_gmt":"2020-06-17T04:28:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=258260"},"modified":"2020-06-17T00:28:52","modified_gmt":"2020-06-17T04:28:52","slug":"prrd-waiting-for-anti-terror-bill-to-be-vetted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/06\/17\/prrd-waiting-for-anti-terror-bill-to-be-vetted\/","title":{"rendered":"PRRD waiting for anti-terror bill to be vetted"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: President Rodrigo Roa Duterte at the Malago Clubhouse in Malaca\u00f1ang on May 4, 2020. TOTO LOZANO\/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 President Rodrigo R. Duterte will wait for the vetting process to be finished before he decides to sign or veto the anti-terrorism bill, Malaca\u00f1ang said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said the President is still waiting for Senator Panfilo Lacson, the principal author of the measure, to finalize the measure\u2019s provisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he spoke about the anti-terror bill, he was saying, \u2018I\u2019m waiting for Senator Lacson to finalize his commas and periods before I sign the bill,’\u201d Roque said in an interview on ABS-CBN News Channel\u2019s Headstart.<\/p>\n

He said the proposed law has not reached the President\u2019s desk, which means that the Office of the Executive Secretary and the Department of Justice were still vetting it.<\/p>\n

Roque said the Office of the Chief Presidential Legal Counsel has already finished reviewing the bill and has sent their input.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are at least three departments that are given the leeway to comment on this legislation. The most important is the Office of the Executive Secretary, specifically the Deputy Executive Secretary for Legal Affairs, and of course, it\u2019s important to listen to the Department of Justice as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Besides these offices, Roque said the President, a lawyer himself, would read the provisions of the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s not forget, that the President was also a criminal lawyer, a public prosecutor. He will read the bill himself and he will himself make a determination if there\u2019s any provision that is contrary to the bill of rights and the Constitution,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Roque clarified that it was not the President who sought support for the anti-terror bill from 784 local government officials.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it was the President that asked for the support because he was in Davao. It was (Interior) Secretary (Eduardo) A\u00f1o,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Roque said it was only \u201cnatural\u201d for the interior chief to seek support from local government officials, who deal with the threat of modern-day terrorism.<\/p>\n

\u201cTerrorism, of course, can occur in specific jurisdictions of the Philippines constituting LGUs,\u201d he said, adding that he respected the decision of other local government officials who opposed the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a free country,\u201d Roque said.<\/p>\n

The anti-terrorism bill seeks to amend and improve the provisions of the Human Security Act of 2007 by giving it more teeth.<\/p>\n

Under the measure, the detention of suspected terrorists for up to 24 days sans a warrant of arrest will be permitted. It also allows a 60-day surveillance with an allowable 30-day extension that can be conducted by the police or the military against the suspected terrorists.<\/p>\n

A person who voluntarily or knowingly joins a terrorist organization will also face 12 years of imprisonment.<\/p>\n

In case of the detention of a suspected terrorist, the Commission on Human Rights should be notified.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 President Rodrigo R. Duterte will wait for the vetting process to be finished before he decides to sign or …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":253909,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258260"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":258261,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258260\/revisions\/258261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}