Manila urged to eradicate terrorism, respect human rights

Manila urged to eradicate terrorism, respect human rights

MANILA (AFP): The Philippines should take a tougher stand against international terrorism but must guard against threatening human rights and democracy, a senior US official and Filipino legislators said.

Their comments came amid growing public opposition to a proposed bill aimed at fighting attempts to make the Philippines a base for international terrorists.

The proposed law would allow certain arrests to be made without warrants, as well as telephone tapping and access to suspects' bank accounts.

Critics have accused President Fidel Ramos of pushing the bill and other measures intended to fight a wave of bank robberies and ransom kidnappings as a prelude to imposing strong-arm rule similar to Ferdinand Marcos' martial law regime.

Winston Lord, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, said yesterday that in his meeting with Filipino officials he stated "the need to fight crime and terrorism internationally."

But he also "expressed hope that human rights would be respected."

"There is always a debate and some tension in a free society like the Philippines between order and liberty," said Lord, who is on the Manila leg of an Asian tour.

"We would show a sympathy for the need for your president and your congress ... to get at this problem of terrorists without infringing unduly or unfairly on human liberty," he added.

Ramos' sister, Senator Leticia Shahani, said over state television that she would seek revisions to the proposed law -- which she described as a "double edged sword" -- to tone down its effects on individual liberties.

"I would also be very careful about violations of human rights and I certainly would not want a return to martial law under the guise of protecting the citizenry against terrorism," she added.

Police have said international terrorists were trying to set up a base in the Philippines and could be plotting to sabotage the annual summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum here in November.

They cited the arrest of 35 suspected Pakistani and Middle Eastern terrorists last year and their alleged links to Ramzi Yussef, the reported mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York.

Yussef was also linked to a mid-air blast inside a Philippine Airlines jet over Japan in December 1994, in which a Japanese man was killed, and a plot to assassinate visiting Pope John Paul II here last January.