OPPOSITION lawmakers led by Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to reject the Senate and House of Representatives’ approval of President Rodrigo Duterte’s request for a one-year extension of martial law and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in Mindanao from Jan. 1, 2018 to Dec. 31, 2018.
They urged the justices to issue a temporary restraining order or writ of preliminary injunction to stop the implementation of the congressional action allowing the extension of martial law in MIndanao which, they said, was unconstitutional and lacked basis.
Lagman aside, the other petitioners were Representatives Tomasito Villarin, Edgar Erice, Teddy Brawner Baguilat Jr., Gary Alejano and Emmanuel Billones.
Rep. Raul Daza was unable to join the petitioners.
The lawmakers named as respondents Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III, Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno and Armed Forces Chief General Rey Leonardo Guerrero.
The petitioners said the claims of President Rodrigo Duterte and his defense, military and police advisers that the “remnants” of terrorist groups that had been monitored “recruiting” new fighters and “regrouping” to launch new attacks, did not justify the re-extension.
“Rebellion or invasion is neither a state of mind or a state of fear. It must be actual, not contingent. It must be real, not contrived,” the lawmakers said in their petition.
“The remnants of vanquished terrorist groups do not have the capacity to launch a rebellion, even as the government is molding them into apparent menacing ogres instead of preempting them by ordinary military and police operations without the need for extending martial law.”
The petitioners said martial law could not be extended in Mindanao simply to subdue residual phantoms.
“The improvident extension of martial law and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus against the remnants of terrorist groups is akin to killing a fly with a sledgehammer,” the petitioners said.
