‘Progressive’ educators file 31st petition vs anti-terrorism law

Members of the academe will be in danger under the new Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 because the law will further embolden security forces to tag “progressive” educators as communist rebels.

This was the assertion by a group of 72 professors and faculty union leaders who filed the 31st petition asking the Supreme Court to strike down Repuwblic Act No. 11479 for being unconstitutional.

The latest petitioners, who teach in the country’s top universities and who lead the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) and other teacher groups, raised the curtailment of academic freedom, among other constitutional rights, by the antiterrorism measure.

“In light of the education sector-related Red-tagging, vilification campaigns, profiling and harassment, the Anti-Terrorism Act [0f 2020] will only embolden state security forces to repress, persecute or even prosecute progressive teachers,” they said in their petition filed on Tuesday.

They said educators like them who teach and produce academic materials that “either tackle rebellion or revolution or just describe corruption and moral decay of society” would be put in danger since they may be tagged as terrorists or terrorist supporters under the new law.

Due to the law’s “vague” definition of terrorism, the petitioners said members of the academe who research topics like insurgency, social movements and underground organizations “will be in a very vulnerable position.”

The petitioners also warned that the harassment of academics who do scientific research in forests, mountains and areas with active insurgency will be “more intense” under the antiterrorism law.

They recalled the death of foremost botanist Dr. Leonardo Co in Kananga, Leyte, on Nov. 15, 2010.

Soldiers gunned down Co and two of his companions who at the time were gathering seedlings of endangered trees for a reforestation project.

In 2013, the Department of Justice charged nine Army soldiers of the 19th Infantry Battalion under the 8th Infantry Division with reckless imprudence resulting in homicide for Co and his companions’ death, and attempted homicide. INQ