What happened in New York on September 11, 2001, was an intimate and moving personal experience for so many. Indeed, the whole world was one global village with all its citizens interconnected in their shock and grief. The only good that came out of that tragedy is that it focused the attention of the whole world to our common and universal enemy — terrorism.

Filipinos grieved with the whole world for weeks or even months on end after the tragedy. Like everyone else, the danger and damage that terrorism can wreak became real to us. It became even more real to us, when we experienced terrorism before our very eyes.

On the fateful day of February 14, 2005, terrorists played a cruel joke on Filipinos. On the day that commemorates love, terrorists struck Filipinos in Makati City, Davao City, and General Santos City with hatred and violence.

Unsuspecting commuters, who were eager to go home to their loved ones after a hard day’s work, were bombed right on the very bus that they were riding. Until now, they bear the physical and emotional wounds of that fateful day. The same horror of terror was sowed in our countrymen in the cities of Davao and General Santos.

Today, in fact, we have in our gallery some of the unsuspecting victims of terrorists in the recent bombings that happened here in our country. They have experienced or endured first-hand acts of terrorism that have injured many of them for life.

The personal circumstances of those who perished transcend the boundaries of color, creed, and class. Any tragedy arising from terrorism becomes the suffering of the entire human race.

Many cannot believe how a superpower like the United States can be brought down to its knees by terrorists. How could the US with its vast military arsenal and cutting edge information technology be at the receiving end of a handful of terrorists?

Admittedly, the Philippines does not have the vast military arsenal and highly advanced technological capabilities of the US. We don’t have many things actually. Foremost among which is an anti-terrorism law. We continue to face the threat of terrorism, but we still don’t have a law to counter terrorism.

What tools and resources do we have with which to defend our freedom and our democratic way of life from the threat of terrorism? To what extent are we willing to bear the inconvenience of sustained vigilance and the limits to our movement and privacy as a price of liberty?

How do we balance the right of people to enjoy freedom and the duty of the state to protect the lives and liberties of its citizens?

Truly, the world is gripped by fear. Living human bodies are wired to be used as weapons of destruction. The zone of senseless killing has expanded to include any imaginable space — a school cafeteria, a passenger bus, a commercial airplane in flight, a train station, an office building, an airport, a ship moored, a marketplace, or any other point in the map selected at random for attack by terrorists.

In the frame of reference of modern terrorists, innocent and helpless civilians are not spared. The battleground is not fixed. No sanctuary is recognized.

The kind of war being waged by terrorists against civil society anywhere goes beyond the parameters of any human conflict. Wars, be they tribal, civil, bilateral, regional, or global have established rules of engagement that limit targets to those of military significance and, as much as possible, confine the confrontation only among armed combatants.

A climate of fear and confusion created by terrorism is disturbing the rhythm of normalcy in freedom-loving societies.

Much as we try to go on with our lives in a normal manner as possible, still we exercise caution in our social activities.

We cannot altogether rule out the popular apprehension that there may yet be another terrorist attack somewhere, at some future time. That somewhere may be anywhere. That future may be anytime.

Any planned, organized, and sustained attack against civilians anywhere by any group for whatever reasons in effect constitutes a declaration of war on humankind.

In the crosshairs of terrorism today is the global community.

The world must deal with the clear and present danger posed by terrorist who are faceless, highly mobile, and determined to lose their lives.

Even in the legal tradition of Western democracies and other countries that highly value civil liberties, freedom is seen in the overall context of the harmonization of rights and duties. Freedom in society is not absolute; otherwise the social order will suffer.

The question, however, is — to what extent can the pressure of national security impose limits on the enjoyment of freedom?

Indeed, how much freedom should we trade for our security? What specifically are the trade-offs?

For freedom-loving societies to continue to be seized by fear of terrorists is precisely to give them a measure of ascendancy. The fight against terrorism entails the active participation of all. And the best contribution anybody can give is to help sustain the momentum back to normalcy. Life has to go on with even greater courage, faith, and hope.

Those who travel frequently by air are already faced with the inconvenience of thorough physical and electronic security checks at points of embarkation and the time delay caused in the process. But this disruption of what used to be a routine and a hasslefree procedure is more than compensated for by the peace of mind it provides.

The sphere of the right of privacy which is one of the basic civil liberties enjoyed in a democratic society is limited by the electronic monitoring of suspicious bank transactions, the surveillance of E-mail communications, the tapping of landline and cellular phone conversations of those suspected of having links to terrorism.

All these measures which are designed to counter terrorism can be abused in the zeal with which law enforcers seek to trap the enemy. With more reason then there is need for a commensurate judicial oversight to prevent excesses.

While the need to tighten security appears to be a curtailment of a person’s full enjoyment of freedom, it could also be true that for democracy to survive, some protection of our people and property against enslavement from terror groups that undermine our laws must be done.

We look at the peril posed by terrorism in the light of the recent Bali bombings and our recollection of terrorist acts at the Davao City Airport, the public market of General Santos City, the LRT Station in Pasay City, and the detonation of bombs in public buses in Makati’s commercial area.

We are dealing with an unknown enemy who moves and strikes at a time of his choosing and who is prepared to lose his life in the process.

Given this new challenge to the safety and security of our people, I do not think that the country lacks the will and the resolve to win. What we need is a new law that precisely addresses the danger of terrorism. We need an anti-terrorism measure to erase a sense of helplessness among our people.

We have come out with an initial draft of the bill.

The question that is uppermost in our minds is precisely how to have a strong hand against terrorism without violating the human rights as well as the constitutional rights of citizens. It is one delicate balancing act that we must do with urgency and prudence.

The Senate is privileged to have the presence of some of the country’s best legal minds. Their insights and wisdom will surely help in the refinement of the anti-terrorism bill.

All acts of terrorism that have rocked various parts of the world seek to tear the fragile fabric of peace that has been carefully woven collectively by the responsible leaders of the global community since the end of World War II.

The fear that they create colors our perception of the cultures and the nationalities generally associated with known terrorists.

The sense of anger and frustration over the death of so many helpless people in the hands of a few fanatics who dared risk their lives in a rampage of destruction tends to fuel among the relatives, friends, and sympathizers of all the innocent victims the instinct of survival and retribution.

The cycle of violence then goes on.

Given the highly charged emotional climate in which we look at terrorism, it is too natural to generalize, to stereotype all those we consider to be the adversaries of our democratic way of life, to label them in the pigeonhole of our prejudices.

In the confusion of the moment, there is hardly time and space for deep reflection since the need is urgent and the threat of terrorism is real.

Even as we condemn any form of terrorism with its kind of indiscriminate violence, still there is an irrefutable logic in going into the underlying grievances. This is premised on our hope for the future, on the faith that even those for whom terrorists carry out suicide missions have as much stake in helping build a better world for all.

We, whose cultural framework values the sanctity of human life and prescribes a peaceful resolution of disputes, must not carry the burden of our suspicion and resentment far into the future. It requires a great deal of moral courage to rise above the pain of the moment and reach out across the borders of our fear.

There is a time to build a bridge to the societies whose grievances, imagined or real, give birth to terrorism. That time is now. And the effort should be collective, all-encompassing and global.

Ultimately, no military weapon is potent enough to destroy terrorism. Individual terrorists may be captured and neutralized. But the idea that moves them remains. Any effort to understand the heart and soul of terrorism, to know the environment that spawns it is a step worth taking.

We must never allow the nation to be held hostage by terrorism. Then we must not give terrorists enough elbow room to sow fear and panic among our people.

What we urgently need now is to enact a comprehensive, balanced, and landmark anti-terrorism law which, while it recognizes the human constitutional rights of citizens, it gives the state the reach, the mobility and the flexibility to give terrorists no space for comfort anywhere in the Philippines.

The seeds of terror have been scattered all over the world, many even point to Asia and the Philippines as training ground for terrorists. We should do everything we can to make sure that those seeds will not grow or breed. We should make our lands barren and infertile for those seeds of terror.