MALOLOS CITY—A Dutch lawyers group called on President Aquino to end the culture of impunity and protect lawyers in the country in an open letter issued last week.
This came as Lawyer Edre Olalia, secretary general of the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL), was tagged as an “enemy” by Army chief Lt. Gen. Noel Coballes.
In a three-page open letter dated July 31 Lawyer Phon van den Biesen, president of The Netherlands-based Lawyers for Lawyers (L4L), reminded the Aquino administration of its obligation to “duly protect and support all lawyers in the Philippines.”
The L4L called on the Aquino administration to “consistently condemn all forms of threats and attacks against lawyers publicly, at all levels and in strong terms; fully comply with the Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, in particular Articles 16, 17 and 18, adopted by the Eighth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, Havana, Cuba, 27 August to 7 September 1990;” and “ take all measures needed to end the culture of impunity and to demonstrate that the people can have faith in the functioning of the constitutional state and the rule of law.”
The lawyers group said that harassment and killings of members of the legal profession and the culture of impunity surrounding those acts, undermine the independence of lawyers and judges.
It also affects the proper functioning of the judicial system and the adequate protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
They told the President that “despite your pledges to prioritize judicial reform and strengthening of the judicial system and to track down assassins involved in extrajudicial killings, the harassment of lawyers seems to continue unabated since you assumed office, while no perpetrators of the earlier crimes committed against lawyers have been convicted, so impunity is still the rule rather than the exception.”
NUPL records showed at least 23 lawyers were killed from 2001 to 2009 in the country.
The killings, L4L said, appeared to follow a pattern wherein victims were first labelled as ‘enemies of the state’ prior to being attacked.
“Today, lawyers increasingly fear for being silenced by fabricated charges that seem to be produced through the subversion of court procedures and rules on evidence. The practice of labelling lawyers as ‘enemy of the state’ by the military also still continues,” the open letter said.
They said that they were recently informed that there is an imminent threat to Lawyer Edre Olalia, a prominent human rights lawyer and a founding member of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL).
The L4L said that Olalia faces clearly false charges as a result of exercising his legal profession.
They said that earlier this month, Army chief Lt. Gen. Noel Coballes reportedly branded the NUPL as an ‘enemy’ in reaction to the NUPL’s criticism on the promotion of an army general who is facing “credible” charges of human rights violations.
Coballes was quoted by the Visayan Daily Star, a Bacolod City based newspaper as saying, “You don’t expect any positive statement from the enemy”.
According to the L4L, the practice of labelling – combined with the culture of impunity and the military involvement in politics – has in the past been identified by national and international fact finding commissions as one of the main root causes for the spate of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines.
“When considering the motive for those killings, the Melo Commission noted that the military has continued to classify the victims as ‘enemies of the state’, while referring to statements of Gen. Esperon and Gen. Palparan, who ‘admitted themselves’ that ‘the armed forces considers the so-called left wing and some partylist organizations, and their members, ‘enemies of the state’ who should be ‘neutralized’,” the open letter said.
