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| FLAG lawyers Chel Diokno and Theodore Te/photo courtesy of Twitter and ABS-CBN |
Members of Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) and
Human rights lawyers Chel Diokno and Theodore Te have expressed opposition to
grant emergency powers to President Rodrigo Duterte to address the coronavirus
disease (COVID-19) emergency in the country.
“The
Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) opposes the proposed grant of emergency
powers to the President, as contained in Senate Bill No. 1413 and House Bill
No. 6616,” mentioned
by Diokno who is FLAG chairman and Te, former Supreme Court (SC) spokesman in
their position paper.
Both Diokno and Te explained the emergency powers requested
are “either superfluous and unnecessary,
as they are already vested in the Executive Branch by existing laws.”
“The
emergency powers proposed to be granted would result in an undue delegation of
legislative powers and a violation of the separation of powers,” the FLAG
lawyers said.
“The
proposed bills seek to confer powers that are already conferred by existing
laws and fail to set forth a national policy, as required by the Constitution,”
FLAG stated.
FLAG emphasized that Republic Act 11332, the
Mandatory Reporting of Notifiable Diseases and Health Events of Public Health
Concern Act already has “a definition of
public health emergency, a response to such, and specific objectives, powers,
and penalties.”
“These
powers are already extraordinary as they contemplate precisely an emergency, i.e.,
a public health emergency,” FLAG said about RA 11332.
“The grant of emergency powers, as proposed by
the Senate and House bills, may not be the solution to the Covid19 pandemic at
this time,” said FLAG lawyers.
“Notice should be taken that other countries
have not resorted to the passage of extraordinary measures to combat the pandemic,
choosing instead to rely on evidence-based strategies and scientific
solutions,” they added.
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