SENATOR Richard Gordon on Thursday said he would file a bill to grant President Rodrigo Duterte emergency powers, including the authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus because he believes the provisions for warrantless arrest under a state of emergency are not enough.
“We will ask him [Duterte] to certify it. If he doesn’t want to certify it, it’s nothing. But I will fight for it,” said Gordon, while insisting that he is trying to protect the public.
He added that there will be measures in place to curb any abuses.
Gordon acknowledged it would be difficult to pass his bill but said he didn’t care if nobody supported his bill.
Gordon said he had not yet talked to Duterte about his plan.
“I will preempt him….The whole world knows that there is such law, [and] we are in an emergency… How can tourists go here? How can investments be here?”
Gordon said he was pushing to give the President emergency powers because he does not want him to declare Martial Law.
“Do you want him to declare Martial Law? I don’t. I want [Congress] to be in control,” Gordon said.
The senator said he was disturbed when Duterte at one time threatened to declare a revolutionary government.
For a long time, Gordon said, the public just watched as drugs flowed in and out of the New Bilibid Prison.
“Now, we have a President who has been fighting them. I know in my heart he is sincere in his drive against drugs and the Abu Sayff Group. But there should be a balance. I’d rather that I draft the restrictions than he dictates to me what the restrictions are. I’m talking about Congress creating the restrictions,” Gordon said.
But Senator Leila de Lima said she was alarmed that somebody would propose suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus.
She said the declaration of a national emergency was justified, although she had reservations about the implementing guidelines.
“We are just in a few days after the declaration of a national emergency… [and] some people are contemplating the possible suspension of the writ of habeas corpus,” De Lima said.
Habeas corpus, she said, is the power of a court to require the state to produce before it the physical body of a person in its custody, whether detained legally or illegally. This is a remedy open to a petitioner who questions the legality of the detention, she said.
“Suspension of the writ means that the court can still ask the state to produce the body, but it can no longer inquire into the legality of the arrest or detention. In short, anybody can be arrested without a warrant and the legality of the arrest cannot be immediately questioned through a petition for habeas corpus, but maybe in some other later proceeding,” she added.
De Lima said Gordon’s plan was alarming, because suspending the writ of habeas corpus is similar to Martial Law.
She said it was laughable for Gordon to equate the war against drugs to an invasion or a rebellion, the only grounds under the Constitution to declare Martial Law.
“What are we having here? A creeping Martial Law, a creeping authoritarianism?” she said
Senate President Pro Tempore Franklin Drilon said there was no basis for Gordon’s bill.
Under the Constitution, he said, the privilege of writ of habeas corpus be suspended only in cases of rebellion or invasion and when public safety requires.
In other words, he said, these are the same grounds for the declaration of Martial Law, which are limited under the Constitution.