A sweeping new antiterrorism law from the government of President Gloria Maracapagal Arroyo has just come into effect in the Philippines. The “Law for Human Security” permits government forces to detain citizen suspects up to three days without formalizing charges, authorizes violent interrogations and the confiscation of the property of the suspect. According to the president it would be the final word for some dangerous groups like the Islamic radicals of Abu Sayaff (the sword of God in a local dialect) who operate in the South of the Philippines.

A thirty-six day wait. Meanwhile, for Father Giancarlo Bossi, a Lombard missionary imprisoned by the work of a group not affiliated with any of the large independent groups, the 36th day of imprisonment in the forest has arrived; he was taken on the way to his parish last June 10 on the island of Mindanao, province of Zamboanga Sidugay, the furthest south of the Asian archipelago. Representatives of the Papal institute of Foreign Missions, that wants to maintain anonymity, have recently leaked apprehensions that the approval of this legislation could make the military sectors authorized to use force feel like some eruptions that could easily lead to a bloodbath. The missionaries are very skeptical about the eventual usefulness of a military blitz to free Father Bossi, as the 10 decapitated soldiers out of 14 dead demonstrate in a similar attempt of incursion into territories controlled by Islamic militants. It happened last July 11 to a Filippino military squad with 14 victims in the forest of Tipo-Tipo, sloping south from the island of Basilan, near the area where it is believed that the priest may be held.

A mess for the opposition. The same Catholic Church officially criticized the legislative provision that became operative as of yesterday, maintaining that it could in reality serve to silence individuals too critical of the regime. In the words of President Arroto, “With this law we finally have the weapons to combat groups of insurgents, whether communists or muslims, above all with the possibility of cutting off their financial income.” Principally from various associations of defense of human rights the fear has been advanced that the cruelest faction of the national army, that for years has committed various violations of human rights in fighting rebel groups (as evidenced in a report of Human Rights Watch at the end of June), with this new law would have a free hand to be able to kill and intimidate with impunity again.

Father Giancarlo Bossi in his prison. But major fears come, as leaked out of some meetings held by the military mediator charged by the Governor of Manila to follow the case of Father Bossi—General Norberto Gonzalez, former minister of Filippino defense, with other exponents of the Catholic Church in the Philippines. As far as PeaceReporter learned, the general aired more than once the possibility that Father Bossi was imprisoned by elements bound to Al Quaida, who would have come into play immediately upon the possibility of an “intervention by the United States.” According to news gathered, some missionaries who followed the negotiation had the feeling that some soldiers were trying to raise the price of the confrontation. From more quarters advice may have come to the Church that “making contact with these robbers is difficult, and even to obtain photographs of the prisoner has required a not indifferent economic effort”--as if to suggest that in order to obtain the freedom [of Father Bossi], perhaps an expenditure of money would be necessary, even consistent. There are in fact precedent cases of sequestered foreigners, as happened with the Libyan journalists, who were released after the payment of several million pesos. At the moment, not a word of comment on this eventuality comes from ecclesiastical sources. The Vatican, it is a thing well known in international circles, cannot allow itself to pay ransom for its own priests, something that would set off a chain of kidnappings of friars and priests to the four corners of the globe.