DAVAO CITY—The government will update the country’s national security policies and laws to cover the administration of the citizens’ identification or ID system, the centralized ownership registration of guns, cellular phone numbers and internet connections and domains, an official has said.
In a press conference here Sunday night, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the security sector was also looking into the national security laws of the countries with cultural and religious diversity, such as Malaysia, which has been implementing its Internal Security Act or ISA since 1987.
In comparison, the 90-year old Commonwealth Act remains the original basis of the Philippine National Security Program and, partly, Republic Act 9372, the Human Security Act of 2007 that is also known as the Anti-Terrorism Act.
Lorenzana said some features of the ISA may not be applicable in the Philippine setting, such as the indefinite detention of suspects before the commission of any crime.
“ISA provides for an indefinite period of detention [without charges] for the process of interrogation of mere suspects [in crimes of breach of national security that has been committed or has yet to be carried out),” Lorenzana said.
“Here we have only 36 to 72 hours of detention period in the process of investigation.”
Some security experts have cited ISA as a successful case of implementation of the national security laws in a Muslim country and a member of the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
Hours before flying to Moscow with President Rodrigo Duterte, Lorenzana addressed a group of some 300 Muslim traditional leaders of whom many had been proclaimed sultans and princesses.
