NUPL asks Supreme Court to reverse CA dismissal of amparo suit

The National Union of Peoples' Lawyers asked the Supreme Court (SC) to reverse the Court of Appeals' (CA) dismissal of its petition for legal protection from alleged state-perpetrated attacks against its members.

In a petition for review, the NUPL urged the SC to set aside the CA ruling and grant them the privilege of the writs of amparo and habeas data, remedies that protect a person's right to life, liberty and security and right to control information about oneself, respectively.

The NUPL alleged that its members had been the subject of red-tagging, or being linked to communist rebels, and were being surveilled, intimidated, threatened, and even murdered during the performance of their duties as lawyers.

However, a CA division denied the petition last month, claiming that the lawyers' group presented insufficient evidence and failed to prove military officials' participation in the alleged acts of harassment against its members.

In its appeal to the SC, the NUPL said the CA committed "serious errors of law and grievous errors in its findings of facts" when it denied the petition.

The NUPL argued it had the legal standing to file the petition on behalf of its members, and that it presented substantial evidence of threats to or violations of its members' right to life, liberty, and security.

"The Court cannot just ignore patterns, history, and a well-spring of facts and information, even if contributive only to circumstantial evidence," the appeal read.

The group further alleged that military officials' failure to fairly and effectively investigate attacks on its lawyer-members also amounted to a violation of their right to life, liberty, and security.

The CA had also dropped President Rodrigo Duterte as a respondent to the NUPL's petition for the group's supposed failure to attribute an illegal act to him, but the NUPL argued that the President has "publicly threatened to kill" suspected members of the New People's Army, human rights activists, and critics of his war on drugs.

The NUPL said Duterte, the commander-in-chief of the Philippine military, was impleaded under the doctrine of command responsibility.

"The continued vilification, harassment and threats to the lives, security and liberty of the petitioners by any act of the respondents, including but not limited to issuing public statements maligning and vilifying the petitioners and their activities as human rights lawyers must stop now," the NUPL said. — DVM, GMA News