July 15, 1987
EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 276
AMENDING REPUBLIC ACT NO. 1700,
OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE ANTI-SUBVERSION ACT
WHEREAS, the government and the people are aware that public safety continues to require a degree of capability on the part of the government to deal adequately with elements who persist in endeavoring to destabilize and ultimately overthrow the government by force, violence, deceit, subversion or other illegal means, and to supplant and substitute the existing political, social, economic and legal order with an entirely new one whose form of government, systems of laws, concepts of individual rights and precepts are based on teaching and beliefs other than the democratic form of government;
WHEREAS, the Government had exerted every effort to effect reconciliation among the rebel elements, on the one hand, and the government, on the other, but these efforts have been frustrated by the intransigence of these rebel elements who have instead intensified ambuscades, raids, killings, arms snatching, illegal taxation and other terrorist activities resulting in the loss of lives and serious injuries to government officials and military/INP personnel and innocent civilians and untold hardship to the Filipino people, notable to which are the extortions perpetrated on lowly farmers and small businessman and the spate of killing of policeman and soldiers in Metropolitan Manila and its environs by members of the Sparrow Units of the New People’s Army;
WHEREAS, for the effective campaign against insurgency and criminality, it is imperative to provide strong legal measures in support of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and law-enforcement agencies;
WHEREAS, Executive Order No. 167 has restored to force and effect Republic Act No. 1700 as the law on subversion; and
WHEREAS, in order to effectively carry out the Government’s program to adequately neutralize the threat of communist insurgency and to contain the massive liquidation and assassination of public servants and civilians, there is need to amend the provisions of Republic Act No. 1700 in order to make them practical, timely and truly efficacious.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, CORAZON C. AQUINO, President of the Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested in me by the Constitution, do hereby order the amendment of Republic Act No. 1700 as follows:
SECTION 1. Section 2 is hereby amended to read as follows:
“SEC. 2. The Congress hereby declares the Communist Party of the Philippines to be an organized conspiracy to overthrow the Government of the Republic of the Philippines by force, violence, deceit, subversion or other illegal means. The said party and any other organization having the same purpose and their successors are hereby declared illegal and outlawed.”
SECTION 2. Section 3 is hereby amended to read as follows:
“SEC. 3. As used in this Act, the term ‘Communist Party of the Philippines’ shall mean and include the organizations now known as the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), its military arm, the New People’s Army (NPA), and its political arm, and any successors of such organizations.”
SECTION 3. Section 4 is hereby amended to read as follows:
“SEC. 4. After approval of this Act, whoever knowingly, willfully and by overt acts affiliates himself with, becomes or remains a member of the Communist Party of the Philippines, and/or its successor or of any subversive association as defined in sections two and three hereof shall be punished by the penalty of arresto mayor and shall be disqualified permanently from holding any public office, appointive and elective, and from exercising the right to vote; in case of a second conviction, the principal penalty shall be prision correccional, and in all subsequent convictions the penalty of prision mayor shall be imposed; and any alien convicted under this Act shall be deported immediately after he shall have served the sentence imposed upon him: Provided, That if such member is an officer or a ranking leader of the Communist Party of the Philippines or of any subversive association as defined in sections two and three hereof, or if such member takes up arms against the Government, he shall be punished by prision mayor to reclusion perpetua with all the accessory penalties provided therefor in the Revised Penal Code: And provided, finally, That one who conspires with any other person to overthrow the Government of the Republic of the Philippines or the government of any of its political subdivisions by force, violence, deceit, subversion or other illegal means, shall be punished by prision correccional to prision mayor with all the accessory penalties provided therefor in the same Code.”
SECTION 4. Section 5 of Republic Act No. 1700 is hereby repealed.
SECTION 5. Section 7 is hereby amended to read as follows:
“SEC. 7. No person shall be convicted of any of the offenses penalized herein with prision mayor to reclusion perpetua unless on the testimony of at least two witnesses to the same overt act or on confession of the accused in open court.”
SECTION 6. This Executive Order shall take effect immediately.
DONE in the City of Manila, this 25th day of July, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and eighty-seven.
