In July, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte signed the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 into law. This bill expands the definition of terrorism so it could include strikes, rallies, protest, and providing support to political activists. This episode of the BOSFilipinos Podcast dives deep into The Anti-Terror Law, how groups in the northeast are organizing in resistance, and why.
Three organizers guide this conversation. Bernadette Patino is Northeast Regional Coordinator of the Malaya Movement. She is based in New York. Allan Basco Espejo and Erin Berja are both organizers for Boston Philipinx, Education, Advocacy and Resources — or PEAR.
Listen to the full conversation below, or subscribe to our show on Apple Podcast, Google Play, Stitcher, and Spotify.
Transcript
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Kaitlin Milliken: Hello, and welcome to the BOSFilipinos Podcast. I'm your host, Kaitlin Milliken, and this show is obviously made by BOSFilipinos.
This podcast is all about sharing the different elements of Filipino and Fim-Am life in the Greater Boston community. So today, we’ll be talking about a recent law passed in the Philippines, The Anti-Terror Act of 2020, how groups in the northeast are organizing in resistance, and why.
There’s been a lot going on in the world lately — from the coronavirus pandemic, to Black Lives Matter activism, to an election just on the horizon. It’s possible that the Anti-Terror Act might have missed your radar. So here’s a very quick crash course.
On July 3rd, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte signed into law the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 — a piece of legislation with a very misleading name. While preventing terror may seem like a good thing, the law expands the definition of terrorism. Under the act, terrorism includes, intimidation of the public, promotion of messages of fear, intimidation of the government, destruction or destabilization of the economy, politics, and society, to create public emergency. So strikes, speaking at rallies, protests — that could all be considered terrorism.
People who provide support — materials, money, services — to those considered terrorists could also face imprisonment without parole.
According to NPR, the law states that it's not intended to quell advocacy and dissent unless there is a serious risk to public safety. However, the council that decides what actually counts as terrorism is appointed by President Duterte. And Duterte’s administration has been under fire by human rights groups for the government’s bloody extra-judicial drug war and crackdown on opposition.
The Anti-Terror Act has been condemned by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, The National Union of People’s Lawyers, and other advocacy groups.
That was a very brief overview. The rest of this episode will take a deeper dive into why groups are calling to junk the terror law, and the best ways to get involved in the Bay State. For this discussion, I am joined by three organizers. Bernadette Patino is Northeast Regional Coordinator of the Malaya movement. Allan Basco Espejo and Erin Berja are both organizers for Boston Philipinx, Education, Advocacy and Resources — or PEAR.
Bernadette, Aaron, Allen, thank you all so much for being here today. Just to get us started, can you tell us a little bit about PEAR and Malaya Northeast, that way anyone who's not familiar can get to know the organizations you're a part of?
Erin Berja: I mentioned that I have been organizing the Boston fair since 2018. It was established in summer of 2018. So our mission statement is that we are a grassroots organization based in Boston, led by people who identify as Filipinx. We advocate for the rights of Philippinxs in the US and in the Philippines. And we organize in solidarity with other communities affected by imperialism. So PEAR was established because there were a bunch of community organizers in Boston — community organizers and activists in Boston — who needed a space to be in community with other Filipinx activists, especially given the fact that Boston has a pretty rich history of Filipino activism.
It was the site of a lot of anti-Marcos opposition protests in the 1970s. And we kind of wanted to honor and continue that legacy contemporarily by continuing to draw attention to injustices that exist in the Philippines today, especially with regards to the Duterte administration.
Kaitlin Milliken: I think that transitions really nicely. Bernadette, can you talk a little bit about the Malaya Movement, and what you do for that chapter in the northeast?
Bernadette Patino: So the Malaya Movement is a broad movement of individuals, organizations and various formations that's dedicated to defending human rights, genuine democracy, and sovereignty in the Philippines. So it was founded in 2018 to really address President Rodrigo Duterte's rising dictatorship in the Philippines. Of course in 2018, this was already when the bloody war on drugs — the so called war on drugs — was in full swing. Duterte had already various massacres under his name and, you know, in the countryside with farmers and peasants. So the human rights situation in the Philippines was really deteriorating already by 2018.
So different community members from across the US came together — various academics, lawyers, faith leaders, student leaders, and community leaders from the Filipino community — to really show that we stand in opposition to Duterte’s human rights violations, to his rising dictatorship in the Philippines. And really, it's inspired by the anti-Marcos movement here in the US during the ‘70s and ‘80s. So as we know, like Marcos, Ferdinand Marcos, was a dictator in the Philippines back in the 1970s and 1980s. Also a very brutal regime. And I think that affects you know, like every Filipino family I can think of has some kind of story about martial law in the Philippines. So the Malaya Movement is really inspired by that show of solidarity from our community here with our kababayan [fellow Filipinos] in the Philippines.
So originally the Malaya Movement started as a US based movement. So we had chapters across the whole country. But now it's global. So there are chapters now in Canada and in Australia.
Kaitlin Milliken: You touched a little bit on this, Bernadette, and I'd love to get sort of everyone to chime in here. We're here today to talk about the Anti-Terror Law of 2020. But I'd love to kind of get some of the political background and the history that gave rise to this situation.
Bernadette Patino: So Duterte was elected in 2016. I was actually still working in the Philippines during this time. Part of his campaign was to end contractualization for workers in the Philippines. He was really courting a lot of the leftist movement in the Philippines. And he had, even in his campaign, this stand of trying to be a strong man. Trying to be like, “Oh, I'm going to show that the Filipino people need discipline. So therefore these brutal policies that I'm talking about,” he was already advocating for using, like the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines in a brutal drug war to end this so-called drug crisis in the Philippines.
His Davao death squads, when he was still mayor of Davao City, was already very well known at this time. Regardless, he's still won the election in a landslide. I think it's 16 million votes, and he really blew all the other candidates out of the water. And the night of his inauguration, there were already extrajudicial killings in the name of his so-called war on drugs. So he gave his whole speech at his inauguration, and then that night, there were dozens of people killed in the streets of various cities across the Philippines in the name of this drug war. So it started very quickly.
And up to now, in 2020, like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, human rights alliances, like KARAPATAN in the Philippines — their research shows that while the Philippine National Police only reports that there are about 5,000 killings, even if that's an acceptable number from the war on drugs, there's estimates already that this number is like well over 30,000. Alongside this, leading up to the anti terror law, we can sort of see how he really used this brutality on the streets. First demonizing a particular sector of society right? The drug war has really impacted the urban poor sector in the Philippines primarily. So right then the human rights defenders start getting targeted, shot in front of their office. And that's even one piece of the pie.
We can talk about the continuation of his neoliberal policies that, you know, cause so much burden and suffering, especially for overseas Filipino workers around the world. We can talk about the ways in which Dutuerte has bowed to the United States and China, compromising Philippine sovereignty in so many ways.
So, yeah, the Anti-Terror Law, in the last four years Duterte has really cultivated a culture of state terror, state violence, and impunity. This is systematized. This is institutionalized. And the Anti-Terror Law is another piece of this larger puzzle. And while it's really not new, because mass arrests, forced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, are already well-seated in Duterte’s presidency and his regime, the Anti-Terror Law, adds fuel to the fire because it is able to justify these things by law. It expands the jurisdiction in which law enforcement and the Armed Forces of the Philippines can continue these violations.
Kaitlin Milliken: Erin, I was wondering if maybe you could help us connect the dots a little bit. Bernadette gave a really great insight into sort of the political background. Can you connect the war on drugs in the Philippines to this Anti-Terror Act and tell us a little bit more about the act itself?
Erin Berja: I was wondering if Alan would actually want to talk.
Allan Basco Espejo: Yeah, I could talk about that a little bit. One thing you'll notice is that oftentimes people will compare Duterte to Marcos. Even though Marcos was a terrible dictator, after he was ousted in the 1980s, a lot of the conditions of the Philippines has not actually improved in a lot of ways, especially in things in regards to poverty. Fast forward to the time of the drug war with Duterte. That compounded with Dutertes’ lack thereof a response to the coronavirus. There is a lot of unrest.
Erin Berja: Yeah, I think it's really important that Allan kind of contextualized the Anti-Terror Law being implemented during COVID-19 — during this whole public health crisis. So as we know, in Southeast Asia, the Philippines has had the highest number of coronavirus cases. And there hasn't been a comprehensive response from the Duterte administration. And instead of providing those needed social services and building of public health infrastructure and any support towards especially poor and working class Filipinos, the government has instead used its energy towards militarization and cracking down on dissent.
They've been given a lot of loans from the World Bank and other International financial institutions. And they haven't really used that towards a comprehensive like plan to support the Filipino people. Yeah. So everyone's kind of asking like, “Why, why do we need this law right now?” There's so much protesters and there's so much dissent about this law coming from a lot of human rights advocates, lawyers, journalists, and basically a lot of different sectors — in the Philippines and also internationally. There's a large uproar internationally. We just had 50 representatives in the US Congress sign this law condemning the Anti-Terror Law. So like all of this condemnation, why is the government still doing this? Why? Why are you not using your energy and resources to provide resources to the Filipinos suffering under coronavirus and your lack of public health services?
Allan Basco Espejo: One thing that a pattern that we can see with the Anti-Terror Law in regards to during the drug war was it kind of follows a line of red tagging and attacks on dissent. So, throughout Duterte’s regime, there has been a lot of red tagging. And so red tagging is essentially claiming that some person or some group is involved with terrorist activities or usually associating them with the communist movement going on — usually, most of the times, without evidence.
There's like a lot of examples, or often times journalists will be accused of being involved with rebellion. And there's often a lot of attacks on journalists and environmental defenders. A famous example is in the case of Brandon Lee, who last August was shot while he was working with a Ifugao peasant movement, I believe. It will make it easier for, basically make it legal for, red tagging and attacks. And they'll most likely occur more often under the Anti-Terror Law.
Kaitlin Milliken: Kind of expanding the definition of terrorism to include things like speaking out against the government, speeches, protests, that can hurt a lot of people who are exercising free speech or expressing discontent.
Bernadette Patino: Yeah. Just to also quickly add. In the act itself, Section Four defines what terrorism is under this new law. And essentially, its definition is more or less the same as the Human Security Act of 2007. That the anti terror act as opposed to replace.
But what many folks have pointed to in Section Four is that the defenders of the anti terror acts are Duterte’s yes-men in Congress and in the Senate. They'll say that, “Oh, there's a provision in there that says we protect the right to organize. We protect the right for people to advocate, protest, all this stuff. It's there in Section Four that this is not included in the definition of terrorism.”
But then what these yes-men don't include is that there's actually a condition to that. It's like, “Okay, you have your right to protest. You have your right to show dissent, etc. Under the condition that the Anti-Terror council doesn't perceive this as undermining public safety, or getting in the way of any major public infrastructure in the Philippines, or posing a risk to public safety.” So what various lawyers — even a former Supreme Court Justice in the Philippines — various international human rights organizations have pointed to is that this condition included in Section Four is very dangerous, because it leaves the interpretation then up to the Anti-Terror Council, which is also created within this act.
So the Anti-Terror Council is essentially a group of men composed almost entirely of Duterte’s appointees, and they have the final say in defining who is a terrorist, in interpreting whether or not your protest is going to be seen as causing harm to public safety, for example. So this condition is left up to the interpretation of a very subjective group of individuals in this Anti-Terror Council that are almost entirely made of Duterte’s appointees. So, that is a huge red flag, a huge concern with the Anti-Terror Law.
Kaitlin Milliken: I did want to dig a little deeper into who's affected. So I've seen, and I'm sure a lot of folks who may be listening to this podcast, have sort of seen things floating around about how this affects both people in and out of the Philippines. Can you talk about how it affects both people who live in the country and people who are part of the diaspora?
Bernadette Patino: So I think there's three particular sections and a lot to really point to when we think about its applications of folks outside of the Philippines. So Section 11 of the law defines who the law considers to be a terrorist. A person no longer has to be a participant in a terrorist act to be considered a terrorist. And I think the next section to sort of think about too is Section number 12. So this section criminalizes material support for who they have tagged as terrorists. So in this section, material support is not just property or money, but it can even constitute what's intangible like services, advice, lodging, training, assistance, providing safe house, providing documents, facilities, personnel or even transportation. It's really easy for the Philippine government especially Duterte to tag particular organizations as terrorist ones. Duterte has attacked many across the world. And this will impact their ability to receive humanitarian aid.
And then I think the last section to also consider about extraterritorial applications is Section 49. So this one is really interesting. It provides six different categories on specific extraterritorial applications for the Anti-Terror Law. So I'll really try to quickly go through the six of these.
So the first one is, the Anti-Terror Law would apply to Filipinos who commit prohibited acts under this law outside of Philippine territory. And it's interesting because what is deemed to be Filipino in this law is very vague. It could be residents of other countries, folks with different immigration statuses, or folks who are simply Filipino by birth.
The second category is individuals outside of the Philippines who commit prohibited acts under this law inside Philippine territory. Say that you're with a solidarity organization providing relief for the pandemic, and you're trying to pass out mutual aid, food and water, and whatnot to different say urban poor communities in Manila. If the government tags or organization as a terrorist one, then your mutual aid work can be deemed as terrorist activity.
So the third category, individuals who commit prohibited acts under this law onboard to Philippine airship or ship. The fourth category of individuals who commit prohibited acts under this law within an embassy, consulate, or diplomatic premises. Boston PEAR, the Malaya Movement, for example, we have mobilized at the Philippine consulate here in New York City. And then if the Philippine government sees this, our protests, as acts of terrorism, they could try to file cases against us in the Philippines.
The fifth category, individuals outside the individuals outside of the Philippines who commit prohibited acts in this law against Filipinos where citizenship is a factor. So say you're a human rights defender, maybe you're not even Filipino. And you are at a protest against the Philippine National Police are the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Well, if the Anti-Terror Council decides... They can say, “Oh, we don't like that you are condemning these members of our Philippine law enforcement who are Philippine citizens, we can deem this as a terrorist act. Or we can say you intending to commit one, and then you can have that terrorist tag.”
So six individuals who commit the prohibited acts under this law directly against the Philippine government. This is a very vague, catch-all category. So any individual — whether you're a Philippine citizen or not, whether you're Filipino or not — any individual committing what the Anti-Terror Council seems to be a terrorist act, or to commit a terrorist act against the interests of the Philippine government, really from anywhere around the world, that person may have criminal cases filed against them in the Philippines under this law.
So yeah, and there's even a little note about extradition. So it says that under the Anti-Terrorist Act, the Philippine government will follow treaties with whatever foreign governments in the process of them, if they want to try to extradite you from your country. So they could try to force you to leave say the US and face cases filed against you in the Philippines.
Kaitlin Milliken: So I do want to pivot into folks who may be interested in organizing around this issue, especially people who live in Massachusetts, or — we’re BOSFilipinos — Boston or in the US. I saw that you made this expression, Allan, since we're over zoom. Would you want to kick off the conversation about how folks can get involved in that movement?
Allan Basco Espejo: So in regards to getting involved, I think the first step to — usually I'll say the first step to getting involved is one is keeping up the current events of what's going on in the Philippines. That's kind of just like, in general, that's something we should be doing. Also, I think another important thing is people should, if they feel the need to, get involved with and to reach out to our different organizations. For example, if you're in Boston, reach out to Boston PEAR. If you're in another city, or if you're in other parts of Massachusetts that maybe don't have a large Filipino community, they're still kind of options. You could always like, check out a lot of the things that Malaya’s doing as well. But, I think the purpose for joining an organization is it provides community, which is just always really nice. It's nice to have a community of Filipinos to discuss, and to talk about these issues, as well as providing a specific structure in organizing against these issues.
Erin Berja: I think a lot of folks right now are scared. Because there's a lot of vague language, like, “Is this gonna apply to me? Is it gonna apply to my family, either in the United States or the Philippines?” But I think it's also really important to know that a lot of people have been mobilizing for this and have been protesting for other issues that are very much intertwined with the motivations for having the Anti-Terror Law implemented. So I mentioned that it was President Duterte’s fifth State of the Nation address yesterday. So a few hours before that, 10,000 Filipinos basically like staged a protest, a rally, an action at UP Diliman, which is the college. Folks, they're still out in the streets.
And there have been more than 15 petitions filed by like lawyers and human rights organizations in the Philippines, towards the Supreme Court, to have them rethink the Anti-Terror Law. And it's really important for Filipino Americans being in the US to recognize that, and kind of do our part in upholding international solidarity. Boston PEAR recently had a week of resistance where we were calling legislators in the US to kind of like publicly condemn the Anti-Terror Law, because any international uproar or any widespread uproar means a lot. Just like spreading awareness and having these counter narratives be proliferated to the public means a lot in upholding like the people's resistance and the Philippines.
Bernadette Patino: If we're talking about calls to action… One if you really want to get involved, if you want to roll up your sleeves and do the work, I think organizations like Boston PEAR and Malaya Movement Northeast are really beautiful ways. They're able to bridge the Filipinx community here to what's happening back in the Philippines to show that we can take action, that we can show collective force together. We can use our voices together to stand for positive change in the Philippines and topple dictatorships in the motherland. And we've done that before. And I think it's really embracing that part of our history, embracing that we are part of a movement that is trying to free our country of all the things that are keeping it down. And I think as us being part of the diaspora, that's one contribution that we can have to the motherland.
The Malaya Movement together with this other Alliance, called BAYAN USA, has a Unity Declaration of People's Demands for Duterte and the US government. So you can sign on at tinyurl.com/demandsvsduterte, versus being vs. So really quickly, the five are to scrap the Anti-Terror Law; to ensure that the government in the Philippines addresses the COVID pandemic properly with free mass testing, with health care, and with livelihood for the Filipino people; three ensure the rights and welfare and protection of our Filipino migrant workers, because they've really faced the brunt of all of the struggles during this global pandemic; four pass the Philippine Human Rights Act. So, the Malaya Movement together with our friends in the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines, and Kabataan alliance — we are having this campaign and asking our legislators to introduce the Philippine Human Rights Act in the House of Representatives here in the US. So essentially, the Philippine Human Rights Act or the PHRA, calls on the United States to suspend US military aid to the Philippines until such a time that we understand that the Philippine government is not perpetuating human rights violations, and for the violations that have already been done, that those individuals be held accountable.
And then lastly, we want to call on the Philippine National Police to get out of the United States. So I don't think a lot of people actually know this, but the Philippine National Police or the PNP, they have outposts here in the US primarily to surveil Filipino activists based here, or Filipinx activists based here. And you know, we've seen the brutality of police departments across the US throughout all the uprisings for Black Lives Matter here. That that's so well documented. So these are just ways in which the US really exports this police violence, this state violence, abroad. And join a local organization, Boston PEAR is amazing. The Malaya Movement Northeast is trying to establish a chapter locally in Massachusetts. There's already a really great group of folks doing Malaya work, especially out in Boston, Cambridge and Somerville areas, so definitely get in touch with folks. Get in touch with me, Erin, or Allan, to get involved if you're interested. At least for the Malaya Movement Northeast, you can follow us on instagram @malaya.northeast, and then our email is malayamovement.ne@gmail.com.
Kaitlin Milliken: I'm afraid that's all we have time for Alan, Bernadette and Erin, thank you so much for being here.
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Kaitlin Milliken: This has been the BOSFilipinos Podcast. I'm your host, Kaitlin Milliken. Music for our show was made by Matt Garamella. Special thanks to Allan, Erin, and Bernadette for joining us for this conversation. You can follow Boston PEAR on Facebook and instagram for updates. You can check out the Malaya Movement on their social channels and website. The team at Malaya Movement North East there also made a really great podcast episode on the Anti-Terror Act, which you should also listen to. Both groups host events — right now in the virtual world — that you can join.
Now I'm going to plug some BOSFilipinos content. If you haven't already, you can subscribe to this show wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also follow us on Instagram, @bosfilipinos, to stay connected. What do you want us to cover? Let us know at bosfilipinos.com. Thanks for listening and see you soon.