THE petitioners, securing a temporary restraining order against the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 (ATA) are genuinely eager to stop the law by raising as many baseless charges as perceived like threats, arrests and continued violations of constitutional rights. They aver that the best time to stop the law was yesterday. I don’t think these groups are considering the entire nation in saying this. The number of petitions, which reached 37, is not a good representation of the majority of our citizens’ sentiments. Given the number of responses from the netizens who support the approval of the law, which is around 85 percent, according to analytics, I would rather say that the best time to stop terrorism was yesterday.

After more than 50,000 deaths from the carnage that these Islamic State inspired attacks by the Abu Sayyaff Group, Jemmah Islamiyah, and the communist terrorist Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF) brought to us, we finally have a law, better than the inutile Human Security Act (HSA) of 2007, that will protect our citizens more. The safety and security of the vast majority must come first, rather than being taken hostage by those few noisy interest groups who are trying to tell the judges, ”Hey, our rights are more important than others.”