KILLINGS | Lawyers’ group flags rampant killing of legal professionals under Duterte’s term

March 15, 2021 , 05:13 PM

(March 15, 2021) – More lawyers were killed under a lawyer leader than any other president in the last four decades, a lawyers’ group said on Monday.

The Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) has listed a total of 61 lawyers, prosecutors, and judges killed since President Rodrigo Duterte came to power in 2016, more than twice the number of legal professionals killed or disappeared starting from the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos until the end of Benigno Aquino III’s term.

Lawyer Theodore Te, the group’s coordinator for Metro Manila, said more people might have been killed or forcefully disappeared during martial law, citing the limitations the group encountered in completing the tally.

“The list is not intended to be comprehensive; it is as far as we know,” Te told the media. “There are more names that are certainly not there. Killings over private disputes by private persons are not included as they wouldn’t directly cover a violation of human rights.”

Nearly half of the lawyers killed, according to FLAG, were slain due to reasons related to their work and the others were either related to illegal drug cases or personal reasons.

Fifteen lawyers were killed of unknown circumstances.

FLAG said the killings show “the growing danger” lawyers face in their legal practice.

Another group, the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL), has a different figure.

It said 54 lawyers were killed in performing their jobs.

It would appear the attacks were work-related but the killings could be politically motivated.

Carlos Conde of the Human Rights Watch (HRW) slammed the Duterte administration for allowing the culture of impunity to thrive in the country.

Conde, a senior Philippine researcher at the international human rights body, said the global rights community should take concrete action to hold accountable those who perpetuated such brutal killings.

“It demonstrates the unsettling extent of the impunity in the Philippines and the ease with which murder is being used to deal with the marginalized, the critics, the activists, and those who dared to represent them as they seek redress in the judicial system,” Conde said in a statement.

“They (the international community) have to see the full picture of what’s happening: the Duterte government is not only violating the rights of the people – by targeting rights defenders, journalists, and now lawyers, it is making sure that accountability and justice remain unattainable, that impunity will prevail. This needs to stop.”

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra refused to attribute these killings to his boss, but he recognized that lawyers are facing serious dangers related to their duty.

“It’s difficult for me to relate the number of deaths and make a comparison, depending on who the president of the Philippines is,” Guevarra said during a briefing. “The president himself is a lawyer. Do you think he will have a policy that will put his fellow members in the legal profession in personal jeopardy or something to that effect? I don’t think so.”

Interventions sought

Citing FLAG’s report, the NUPL called on Diego García-Sayán, United Nations special rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, to look into these incidents of killings among legal professionals.

The NUPL has sent a letter to the UN rapporteur pointing out that the lawyers killed were either handling drug-related cases or human rights cases.

“These attacks also impinge on judges and lawyers’ independence and their ability to perform their function impartially and without fear of harassment, external pressures and threats,” the NUPL said in their letter.

“The victims and their families have not yet obtained justice. Almost all of the perpetrators have never been brought to the bar of justice. And the prevailing climate of impunity emboldens the perpetrators of these dastardly acts to commit further attacks.”

NUPL also said lawyers have been experiencing harassment, intimidation, and other attacks that put their lives in peril, citing the stabbing of rights lawyer Angelo Karlo Guillen in Visayas earlier this month.

Regional police in Visayas also wanted to conduct surveillance activities on lawyers, asking a regional court recently to issue a list of legal counsels representing what they referred to as front organizations of the Maoist-led armed rebels. The police did not give solid basis for their accusations.

Groups condemned the move initiated by Lieutenant Fernando Calabria, who has since been relieved from his position as chief of intelligence unit at the Calbayog City Police.

Both the Supreme Court and the Department of Justice have started preparing an inventory of lawyers and judges killed, but the public has yet to gain access to these records.

(Beatrice Puente/MM)

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