The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) condemns the continuing killings, attacks, harassment and threats on members of the . Since President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo came to power in 2001, twenty-five lawyers, including ten judges, have been killed. This extreme and outrageous violence against members of the legal profession has especially targeted those lawyers serving the poor and oppressed, defending human rights, and representing clients who are dissenting or protesting against government policy.
On June 21, Attorney Evelyn Guballa was killed by motorcycle riding men, becoming the legal profession’s fourth fatality this year.
Attorney Concepcion Jayme-Brizuela, member of the Executive Committee and Treasurer of Union of People’s Lawyers in Mindanao (UPLM), was and is still subjected to real and imminent danger to her life. She has received text messages on her cell phone stating she is next in line to be killed.
Attorney Beverly Musni, labor arbiter of the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and Secretariat head of UPLM, is on the military’s “Order of Battle (OB),” a list of those to be killed. On the night of June 27 she was followed by men aboard a motorcycle while on her way home with her daughter.
Attorney Romeo Capulong, who is widely recognized as the foremost human rights lawyer in the Philippines and was a United Nations Judge ad litem for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, escaped assassination on June 25. This was not the first attempt on his life, and by all accounts this latest attempt relates to his active role as counsel in the cases against Hacienda Luisita, Inc. Atty. Capulong represents farm workers, employees, and victims of the November 2004 massacre at Hacienda Luisita.
Not only do the attacks, threats, and harassment affect the safety of these lawyers and judges, they threaten the independence and integrity of the legal profession, particularly for those handling cases of human rights abuses and abuses by the military, in providing faithful and vigorous representation to clients. “These attacks on lawyers and judges are attacks on the poor and disenfranchised,” said Marjorie Cohn, Lawyers Guild president-elect and professor of international law. “If their lawyers cannot speak for them and if judges fear to rule impartially, they are denied their most fundamental rights to due process established by international human rights conventions.”
The National Lawyers Guild joins others in the international community that have expressed serious concern over these attacks and calls for even stronger action from the international legal community to stop them and bring the perpetrators to justice.
The National Lawyers Guild insists that independent bodies investigate the killings taking place throughout the country, as the Philippine National Police (PNP) force will not be accorded the credibility necessary for the resolution of these cases.
This is not only because those assigned to the job will be investigating fellow PNP members and members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, but also because it has failed to conduct any serious, competent and impartial investigation and prosecution of the perpetrators since the killings started in 2001.
The National Lawyers Guild demands that the U.S. government cease its complicity in these killings by immediately halting any and all funding of the Arroyo government.
Contact
: Vanessa Lucas, NLG Philippines Committee, (919) 828-1456
Merrilyn Onisko, NLG Philippines Committee, (202) 319-1541
About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.
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