NUPL lawyer asks DOJ to junk kidnapping rap

A lawyer from the National Union of Peoples' Lawyers (NUPL) on Wednesday asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) to dismiss a complaint alleging she kidnapped a boy survivor of the Sagay massacre.

In a counter-affidavit, lawyer Katherine Panguban denied the allegations of Vic Pedaso, the estranged father of a 14-year-old boy who survived the killing of nine sugarcane farmers in Sagay, Negros Occidental last October.

Panguban said she signed an agreement for legal services with the boy's mother, and a turnover agreement that formalized the return of the minor, whom social workers took in after the massacre, to his mother's custody.

Pedaso, the father, also signed the turnover document, Panguban  told the DOJ.

"Complainant Vic Pedaso could not even successfully allege with some semblance of clarity that I or any other person in our group deprived" the mother and her son "of their liberty at any given time," she said in the filing.

Panguban also urged the DOJ to take notice of the boy's mother's denial of Pedaso's kidnapping allegations.

The mother had filed her own complaint against her former partner for psychological abuse—he allegedly forced to gain custody of their son, coerced her to go to the police, and threatened to file charges against her. The complaint has been submitted for decision.

Panguban, the lawyer, said she is "venturing the characterize the filing of this case as a veiled attack against the legal profession and against the organization that I represent, the NUPL."

The NUPL has recently asked the Supreme Court for protection from attacks, threats, and acts of harassment allegedly perpetrated by state forces.

The High Court has since issued a writ of amparo and ordered the Court of Appeals to hear the case. — BM, GMA News