NUPL stands firmly with our comrades at the NLG and all people’s lawyers who have relentlessly and steadfastly worked for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms amid violence, intimidation, and harassment. Stop the attacks!
NUPL | Oct 24, 2025
The 7th National Congress closed with a collective reaffirmation of NUPL’s founding principles: that the law must serve the people, and that people’s lawyering is both profession and protest, calling and commitment. The NUPL leaves Cebu with renewed strength and unity, ready to carry forward its mission to defend rights, fight for justice, and hold power to account.
As the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers gathers for its Seventh Congress, this work takes on a renewed urgency. From the defense of those arrested on September 21, to legal challenges against repression and corruption, to the pursuit of justice in international tribunals — the struggle continues. Seven Congresses strong, we carry forward this mandate: to use the law to challenge the status quo, confront power, and serve the people.
The Call of Our Times
Comrades, friends, and colleagues, we are facing difficult times. The repression is relentless. The threats are palpable and real.
But the call of our times is clear: to continue, to stand firm, and to multiply the ranks of people’s lawyers who will not flinch in the face of fear.
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.
We reiterate our call for the immediate release of all those unlawfully arrested on September 21, for urgent medical treatment of those injured, and for a full, independent inquiry into the acts of torture, cruel treatment, and arbitrary detention committed under police custody.
It is not disorder or damage to property that most endangers society, but the daily violence of hunger, corruption, and repression. It is the poor who are punished swiftly and harshly, while those truly responsible for the country’s decay are shielded from accountability.
The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) received confirmation that those arrested during the September 21, 2025 protests—who only underwent inquest proceedings yesterday before Fiscal Lester Jay Allan Flores II—have been ordered released by the Office of the City Prosecutor, Manila.
To punish children for protest or poverty while sparing the powerful who plunder and abuse is the gravest injustice. The State’s duty is not to break the young with fear but to uphold their dignity and rights.
On September 22, 2025, thirteen lawyers from the National Union of Peoples Lawyers (NUPL), Public Interest Law Center (PILC), Sentro para sa Tunay na Repromang Agraryo (SENTRA), and Pro Labor Assistance Center (PLACE) jointly responded to the ongoing detention of individuals arrested during the September 21 mobilizations.
