MANILA, Philippines?Signing the Anti-Torture Law will give President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo a "legacy" in upholding human rights and a chance to change public perception that her government allows torture to continue with impunity, a human rights advocate said Friday.

"It's up to the President how she wants to be remembered by the people. We know of her poor rating and we know that the perception on her administration is not very flattering. At least if she signs the Anti-Torture Law, that's something to remember her by," Kaloy Anasarias, spokesperson of the United Against Torture Coalition (UATC), told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

The UATC and the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) held a press conference in Quezon City to publicly urged Ms Arroyo to sign the enrolled bill transmitted to her office by Congress' bi-cameral committee last Oct. 15.

Director Karen Dumpit of the CHR's government linkages office said that Ms Arroyo has 30 days to sign an enrolled bill before it automatically becomes a law.

Dumpit said that the Presidential Legislative Office informed her yesterday that the enrolled bill has been transmitted to concerned government agencies for their input.

Nonetheless, Dumpit said the Office of the President still has two weeks before the bill lapses into law on November 15.

"We will see her will [to end torture] with her signature on the enrolled bill. We are in great anticipation of President Arroyo signing the Anti-Torture Law. It will signal in a break in impunity [for torturers]," Dumpit said at the press conference.

The Anti-Torture Law criminalizes torture and aims to prevent anyone, especially state security forces, from practicing it.

The UATC stressed that the "abhorrent practice (of torture) is meant to destroy the very dignity of the human person."

It added that the "foremost obligation" of the government, being a signatoree of the 1984 Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, was "to put a domestic legal framework banning the use of torture in place."

The CHR and UATC said that several international organizations, such as those from the United States and Europe "have already sent letters expecting Ms Arroyo to sign the Anti-Torture Law."

Dumpit said that CHR chair Leila de Lima had sent a letter dated Sept. 28 to the President urging her to sign the bill.

In her letter, De Lima told the President that the "transmittal of the enrolled bill to the Office of the President comes once in many lifetimes."

"While the Aquino Government rightfully acceded to the United Nations Convention on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman, Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Ramos and Estrada Governments, along with the 10th to 12th Congresses failed to pass a measure criminalizing torture in accordance with international rights standards," De Lima said in a letter, a copy of
which was furnished to reporters.

De Lima pointed out in her letter that Ms Arroyo herself has "continuously declared that there exists no policy of torture in the country."

"The passage of the Anti-Torture Law provides, with greatest clarity, the declaration not only of a 'no torture policy' but matches this with the accountability in certainty of proportionate punishment when torture indeed takes place," De Lima said.

Last May, the United Nations Committee Against Torture (UNCAT) expressed "grave concern" over the "climate of impunity" surrounding torture cases and similar human rights violations in the Philippines.

It also criticized the government for submitting its report on its compliance with the convention 16 years late.