NUPL seeks Supreme Court protection vs. harassment, red-tagging

Human rights lawyers from the National Union of People's Lawyers (NUPL) have asked the Supreme Court for protection against threats, harassment, and "red-tagging" allegedly done by military officials.

The NUPL on Monday sought a writ of amparo from the high court and, for the time being, a temporary protection order prohibiting President Rodrigo Duterte and his defense and military officials from threatening and harming the life and security of their lawyers.

A writ of amparo is a remedy available to persons whose right to life, liberty and security is violated or threatened with violation by an unlawful act or omission of a public official or employee, or of a private individual or entity.

The NUPL also sought a writ of habeas data ordering the officials to disclose and destroy information they have on the lawyers.

In a 22-page petition, the NUPL alleged its member-attorneys have been targeted by accusations of links to communist rebels, surveillance, false charges, and violent attacks, acts of harassment that they said are "intensifying" under the Duterte administration.

"The present Duterte administration has shown open disdain for human rights activists and lawyers," the NUPL said through the Public Interest Law Center, its lawyer in the petition.

It cited in particular a speech by Brigadier General Antonio Parlade Jr., a deputy chief of the staff of the Armed Forces, which supposedly tagged the NUPL as belonging to the "international network of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People's Army."

NUPL president Edre Olalia earlier disputed the military official's claim and said the accusation places the lives of NUPL lawyers in "even more danger."

In the petition, the NUPL said it has recorded more than 43 lawyers killed and 57 attacked between 2001 and 2015. Sixty-five percent of known perpetrators were members  the military, while 20 percent were from the police, it claimed.

During the Duterte administration, which began in July 2016, 55 lawyers have been attacked and at least 36 have been killed, the group added.

"The foregoing circumstances, in their totality, serve to engender the well-founded belief that the respondents and their agents are responsible for the attacks on NUPL and its member-lawyers that include killing, threats, harassment, surveillance and red-tagging," the petition stated.

Named respondents in the petition were Duterte, National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr., Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, AFP chief General Benjamin Madrigal Jr., AFP deputy commander for intelligence Brigadier General Fernando Trinidad, AFP intelligence chief Major General Erwin Bernard Neri, Philippine Army commanding general Lieutenant General Macairog Alberto, and Parlade. — RSJ, GMA News