By Diego Morra
It seems that the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP), particularly those who conspired to bestow the Golden Pillar of Law award to ex-president Rodrigo Duterte, who is now detained at the Scheveningen Prison in The Hague on charges of crimes against humanity, are walking on their heads and not on their feet. Perhaps, it is the Duterte contagion, or transference, that took over their brains and compelled them to lionize the architect of the summary killings in his so-called anti-drug war.
Duterte has never secreted away his contempt for the law, and his despicable theory that his political enemies, along with suspected criminals and those who despise his political dynasty are not entitled to enjoy human rights and equal protection of the law. The IBP in Davao City certainly should take heed of the protest lodged by lawyer Beverly S. Musni, the secretary general of the Union of People’s Lawyers in Mindanao (UPLM), who urged the IBP to junk Duterte’s award, arguing that Duterte is not a pillar of law but the architect of violence, of policies that led to the 30,000 murders of Filipinos denied due process, including victims as young as 7-years-old who were gunned down for theft.
Musni appealed to the better angels of IBP’s nature and beseeched them to shine a light on those who mocked the IBP award by giving it to Duterte, who has been denied interim release by the prosecutors and judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) since he still poses a threat to the families of the victims of his bloody anti-drug war and the lawyers who worked to sew up the case against him. She noted that many human rights lawyers were also murdered during the bloody Duterte regime. Moreover, Duterte’s children, including Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio, have skewered the ICC, repudiated its authority and condemned it for masterminding the “kidnapping” of their father, who recognized the validity of the ICC arrest warrant.
This is the same Sara who publicly announced a plot to spring her father from prison, possibly after watching “Papillon,” “The Great Escape” and “The Birdman of Alcatraz.”
Apart from attacking Duterte as underserving of the award, retired Cebu City Judge Meinrado “Menmen” Paredes returned his own Golden Pillar of Law award to the IBP. “Thank you for recognizing me for my dedicated service to the legal profession and for upholding the ideals of justice, integrity, and the rule of law for the past 50 years,” Paredes said in his letter addressed to IBP national president Allan Panolong. “It was an honor to be given the ‘IBP Golden Pillar of Law Award.’ However, after learning that the same award was conferred on former President Rodrigo R. Duterte, I have decided to return the plaque of recognition to the award committee through the IBP Cebu chapter,” Paredes said. “There is no rule of law if human beings are killed without due process. There is no justice and due process if drug suspects are killed like stray dogs in the streets. He is the principal accused of crimes against humanity before the ICC,” he added.
Paredes also defended deceased activists accused of terrorism and said that Duterte’s are dripping with blood has blood debts. “This is not a protest but an expression of disappointment and disgust. I am doing this in solidarity with the victims and their relatives of human rights violations,” the retired judge explained. On the other hand, National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) chairperson Edre Olalia said it’s an “incomparable irony” that Duterte was recognized for upholding the law and justice given his track record of human rights violations. “Unbelievable. What a disgrace. No one else could be so undeserving. And to mindlessly gloss over that this award was given automatically for mere length of years as a lawyer is to bestow it to even those who make a mockery of the lofty IBP ideals of no master but law, no goal but justice, and no guide but conscience,” the NUPL chairperson said.
Karapatan, an alliance of human rights groups and programs, also rejected the recognition, calling it “a travesty and an affront” to “the very ideals of the legal profession.” The alliance added: “It is unconscionable to adorn a man whose public record is marred by gross disregard of justice, conscience, and the rule of law with a recognition supposedly reserved for upholding the highest standards of integrity and service. This award makes a mockery of the Code of Professional Responsibility and Accountability (CPRA), and betrays the victims of extrajudicial killings (EJKs), torture, and other human rights violations who continue to cry for justice.”
Duterte also became notorious for his attacks against progressives. Olalia said more deserving of the award are the NUPL members “who plod every single day to slay the dragons of injustice.” Red-tagging, abduction, intimidation and the killings of activists worsened under his administration. Duterte also organized the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) under Executive Order No. 70. It continues to undertake the red-tagging of leaders and members of progressive groups. Lawyers and journalists were murdered with regularity. He inflicted the draconian anti-terror law, which empowered the state itself to arbitrarily declare a person a terrorist without even defining what a terrorist is, deny him his human rights, strip him of his political rights, steal his bank accounts and property.
Karapatan tagged the Duterte award as “a travesty and an affront” to “the very ideals of the legal profession.” It added: “It is unconscionable to adorn a man whose public record is marred by gross disregard of justice, conscience, and the rule of law with a recognition supposedly reserved for upholding the highest standards of integrity and service,” Karapatan said. “This award makes a mockery of the Code of Professional Responsibility and Accountability (CPRA), and betrays the victims of extrajudicial killings, torture, and other human rights violations who continue to cry for justice.”
