KILLINGS SHOW PNP ABUSE OF WARRANTS, LAWYERS SAY
The Supreme Court should come out with clear guidelines for judges in issuing search warrants following what Vice President Leni Robredo has condemned as the “massacre” of nine activists in simultaneous police operations in provinces near Manila recently, a group of lawyers said on Tuesday.
Antonio La Viña, dean of Ateneo de Manila University’s School of Government, lamented that such court orders have been used as “death warrants” against members of militant organizations.
“I call on judges to be careful because the search and arrest warrants are also becoming ‘death warrants,’ which is a violation of the Bill of Rights,” La Viña said at a press briefing.
Human rights and activist groups questioned the police practice of getting warrants from courts outside the jurisdiction of their targets, which had led to killings, the latest on Sunday in the Calabarzon region, which the police explained had resulted from resistance by the victims.
Public Interest Law Center lawyer Kristina Conti said that while her group was considering legal remedies against the abuse of a Supreme Court circular that allowed courts in Metro Manila to issue search warrants in places outside the national capital, its main call was for the police to “stick to the rules and apply with the court of jurisdiction.”
“Our main point is that judges should also be circumspect as to their appreciation of witnesses who might not be telling the truth. In relation to venue and applying specifically, take in consideration how and why a witness in an illegal possession case in Bacolod, for example, [could] be present in Quezon City,” she explained.
Even before this, critics have been sounding the alarm against Supreme Court Circular No. 3-8-2-SC, saying that the search warrants issued by Metro Manila judges were being “weaponized” to target critics of the government.
Sunday’s raids were against several members of militant organizations Bayan, Karapatan and Kilusang Mayo Uno. The police had obtained warrants to search for firearms and explosives issued by Manila Vice Executive Judge Jose Lorenzo dela Rosa and Branch 174 Judge Jason Zapanta.
Lawyers challenging the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 formally informed the Supreme Court on Tuesday about last week’s attempt on the life of lawyer Angelo Karlo Guillen and the killing of nine activists in what the police maintained as legitimate operations against illegal firearms.
They said these incidents were yet another display of impunity by “enabled and emboldened’’ forces who could abuse the terror law.
Led by the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, the lawyers said the public should also press the government to put an end to the “killings and the escalating violence and impunity that have seriously eroded the rule of law and our democratic order.”
‘Stop these attacks’
“We call on the Supreme Court, as the constitutionally appointed guardian of civil liberties and protector of the legal profession, to take immediate measures to stop these attacks,” the group said in a statement signed by 62 lawyers and read by lawyer Evalyn Ursua in a press conference.
“These attacks against lawyers must stop as they threaten the practice of the legal profession and the right of the people to judicial remedies,” the group stressed.
It was the latest statement of indignation following the attack on Guillen, who was stabbed in the head with a screwdriver by still unidentified assailants in Iloilo City on March 3. The attackers took his bag containing his laptop, where he kept his case files, but left his other valuables untouched.
Guillen, 33, is assistant vice president for the Visayas of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) and a counsel for one of the 37 petitioners contesting the constitutionality of the terror law in the Supreme Court.
Among those who signed the statement were former Vice President Jejomar Binay and former Sen. Rene Saguisag, both human rights lawyers during the martial law period, and retired Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and former Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales.
In a manifestation on Tuesday, they formally informed the high court about the attack on Guillen as well as the “Bloody
Sunday’’ killing of nine activists in police operations conducted in the Calabarzon region on March 7.
They reiterated their call for the tribunal to issue a temporary restraining order on the terror law, saying “the attacks on Guillen and the activists are not just a condemnable assault on a member of the legal profession and civil society actors, but also a stab to the heart of the Constitution.”
More active response
The lawyers also asked the Department of Justice and law enforcement agencies to resolve the cases of the 56 lawyers, state prosecutors and judges killed since President Duterte assumed office in 2016.
“We urge members of the legal profession and various law groups to launch a more active response to these attacks, including complaints in UN (United Nations) mechanisms against these attacks,” they added.
According to Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) chair Jose Manuel Diokno, “the attempt on Attorney Guillen’s life is the latest demonstration of impunity by offenders enabled and emboldened because of the absence of a demonstrable attempt to hold them accountable.”
Diokno noted that the killing and “Red-tagging” of activists and their lawyers were happening while the high court was deliberating on whether the terror law “creates a chill through well-crafted hypotheticals in sterile arguments.”
Threatened, harassed
“There is nothing hypothetical about a lawyer being stabbed [with] a screwdriver,” Diokno said, stressing that the high court “has the legal as well as moral mandate and authority to protect its own officers.’’
Lawyer Howard Calleja, another petitioner, said there was no denying that “lawyers are under attack. The Filipino people are under attack.”
“We don’t want to be hurt and killed. We brought this issue to the proper forum, the Supreme Court. But what have they done to us? We are being threatened and have been placed under surveillance,” Calleja added.
“Lawyers are here to defend the rule of law [that’s why] we are called ‘officers of the court.’ But instead of letting us do our job, we are being harassed,” he said, adding that he himself had noticed several unidentified men surveilling his residence.