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MANILA, Philippines--Supreme Court
Chief Justice Reynato Puno has criticized the "mindless" crackdown
on terrorism at the expense of civil liberties, and said a state with
credibility problems could not adequately protect the rights of its
citizens.
In a speech during commencement exercises at the University of the East,
Puno said responses to terrorism had been "more discomforting"
than the act itself.
"Terrorism is terrible enough, but the mindless, knee-jerk reaction
to extirpate the evil is more discomforting," Puno said.
"One visible result of the scramble to end terrorism is to take
legal shortcuts and legal shortcuts always shrink the scope of human
rights.
These shortcuts have scarred the landscape of rights in the Philippines,"
he said.
Puno added that the "quickie solution" would consist of
flag-waving, singing the national anthem and issuing a "high-pitched"
directive to the military and the police to use their weapons for victory
at all costs.
But he said laws that limited individual rights in the name of state
security had been passed.
"To put constitutional cosmetics to the military-police muscular
efforts, lawmakers usually enact laws using security of the state to
justify the dimunition of human rights by allowing arrests without
warrants; surveillance of suspects; interception and recording of
communications; seizure or freezing of bank deposits, assets and records of
suspects. They also redefine terrorism as a crime against humanity and the
redefinition is broadly drawn to constrict and shrink further the zone of
individual rights," he added.
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