(Eagle News) — Tuesday’s bombing in Sultan Kudarat is proof that “neither martial law nor the Bangsamoro Organic Law could guarantee peace in Mindanao,” Senator Panfilo Lacson said on Thursday, Aug. 30.
As such, Lacson said the National Security Council and ground security forces should “take a hard look at their security plans and strategy, especially in the South, and try to avert the vicious cycle of talking peace with one tribal group while alienating the others.”
When the government negotiated peace with the Moro National Liberation Front, Lacson said the Moro Islamic Liberation Front came into being and became a dominant armed force in Mindanao.
As government discusses peace with the MILF, a breakaway group is sowing terror, Lacson said.
He also pushed for the passage of a Senate bill he filed aimed at “enhanc(ing)” the Human Security Act of 2007.
Under Senate Bill 1956, the term “terrorism” is replaced by the term “terrorist acts” to, Lacson said, remove the requirement of acts being perpetrated for the purpose of coercing the government to give in to a specific demand for them to be classified as terrorist in nature.
“This has the effect of punishing the act of committing crimes that sow widespread extraordinary fear and panic, and not the purpose behind the commission of such acts,” he said.
The bill also penalizes foreign terrorists and those residing abroad who come to the Philippines in transit to commit or take part in terrorist acts to target countries.
He said the Human Security Act of 2007, as it is, “has not been proving itself effective in addressing terrorism in our country.”
“While an anti-terror law in itself cannot solve the problem of terrorism, an intensified one can, however, give the government and the law enforcement agencies the much-needed tool in dealing with the emerging threats of terrorism,” he said.