NUPL slams posters linking progressive individuals, groups with CPP

The National Union of Peoples' Lawyers (NUPL) on Sunday slammed the posting of several paraphernalia in Leyte and General Santos City which appears to link progressive groups and individuals with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

A photo from NUPL showed tarpaulins placed outside an event of the lawyers' group in Tacloban, Leyte depicting Bayan Muna chairman Neri Colmenares and NUPL president Edre Olalia as "lapdogs" of CPP founding chair Jose Maria Sison.

The NUPL event served to relaunch its chapter in Tacloban. Colmenares himself attended the event on Saturday, while Olalia also spoke there two weeks ago.

Another photo showed posters claiming that Colmenares and Bayan Muna party-list Representative Carlos Zarate as well as other progressive organizations are "allies" of the CPP and its armed wing, the New People's Army, and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.

These posters were placed outside the venue of the 17th Assembly of Union of People's Lawyers, an affiliate of NUPL, on Saturday in General Santos City where Olalia served as speaker along with retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio.

"These vicious, unrelenting though ridiculous but dangerous villification is precisely what the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the ICC and the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) have separately pointed out and continue to warn against," Olalia said of the paraphernalia.

"These would certainly impact on the OTP’s findings in her conclusion of her preliminary findings in 2020 and of the OHCHR’s comprehensive report to be submitted during the 44th Session of the UNHRC in June 2020," he added.

Olalia said they are already considering taking more surgical, legal and metalegal steps against these "orchestrated red-tagging charades."

"We continue to just do our work in the service of the poor, oppressed and persecuted.  We will not be distracted nor slowed down," he said.

"Thank you for the effort and the cute and flattering pictures though," he added. —With a report from Sandra Aguinaldo/Erwin Colcol/KG, GMA News

Photos courtesy of NUPL