As I had said, over the years we have been able to put up a very strong architecture of legal protection for human rights, including women's rights. You have the Anti-Sexual Harassment Act. Our humanitarian law in times of war is very strong on that. Our Magna Carta of Women also has very strong protection of women. Our anti-rape law has been updated. It is no longer as it was in the beginning. A crime against chastity is a crime against persons. Rape in marriage is forbidden. It's there. Our human rights laws are there. As I said, even in times of war, that protection is in place.
As I said, we had had a sense of confidence and complacency since Marcos' time that we had reached some level that we could rest on. We were thinking, in the women's movement in particular, that our problem was now housekeeping, enforcing the laws, making sure these were done and implementing rules and regulations. We are completely unprepared for and still unable to understand what is happening now. The president says he does not care about the law, and that is the quandary. I think we believe very much that the law should protect us. It is there to protect us and those who are especially weak and needy. We need the rule of law, and over the years, have been undergoing this reform, including the reform of the security sector.
That is why I think there is so much fear and threat now and public insults. People think twice about whether they should speak out. Anyone who is there to raise a question has received verbal assaults. Just a few hours ago, when Senator Drilon, one of our veteran senators, told Duterte to be careful in the review of the contracts of government, he said, “Well, if you don't stop it, I will suspend the writ of habeas corpus, and I will arrest all of you. You are no different from rebels, criminals and drug users. I will arrest all of you.” That is what he said.
The law is important, but the assault on human rights and the rule of law, and the lack of reservation in the way personal attacks are being made, did stunt us for awhile. The law is there, so that is what we are counting on—that there will be a time of reckoning. I think with time the people are getting braver and are collectively coming together to say that this cannot be. The law is important, but the dilemma is that we now have leaders like this, who seem to think they can get away with it, and we do allow them to for awhile.