Senator Grace Poe. PHOTO FROM SEN. GRACE POE’S OFFICE
Senator Grace Poe wants stiffer penalties for any person making false bomb threats by imposing up to 12 years imprisonment or a fine of up to P5 million.
Poe has filed Senate Bill 1060 that seeks to repeal and supersede Presidential Decree No. 1727, which declares unlawful “the malicious dissemination of false information of the willful making of any threat concerning bombs, explosives or any similar device or means of destruction.”
READ: Anti-bomb scare bill filed
PD 1727, issued in October 1980, provides a penalty of not more than five years imprisonment or a fine of not more than P40,000 or both at the discretion of the court.
Poe’s bill seeks to penalize “the dissemination of false information as to the presence of bombs, explosives, and other incendiary devices in high density or sensitive places and providing penalties thereof.”
Under the measure, no person should “willfully” communicate either directly or indirectly through mail, telephone, internet communication device or any means a threat or information involving a bomb, explosive or other incendiary device “when such threat is not in fact not present, thereby causing either the evacuation or serious disruption” of a school, a dwelling, building place of assembly, facility or public transport or an aircraft, ship or common carrier, or “willfully communicates or causes serious public inconvenience or alarm.”
“Any person found guilty of violating this Act or any rules and regulations issued pursuant hereto shall, upon conviction, be punished by imprisonment of not less than six years but not more than 12 years or a fine of not less than P1 million but not more than P5 million or both,” the bill said.
In filing the measure, Poe cited several bomb scares in the last months, which she said had threatened various places around the country.
She cited in particular the false bomb threat at the Ateneo de Manila University campus in Quezon City last March 28 that forced students and employees to evacuate and another bomb scare that triggered the temporary closure of the northbound lane of EDSA-Main Avenue in Cubao, Quezon City last April 17.
READ: Classes, work suspended after bomb threat hits AdMU
“Every false bomb threat which causes unnecessary alarm in an area leads to unnecessary anxiety for the people, disruption of regular activities, losses in productivity and wastage of law enforcement emergency response resources,” Poe said in the explanatory note of the bill. RAM/rga