Beyond the Bar: A Send-Off to Future Lawyers
To the brave souls about to enter the halls of bar testing centers, we salute you. The days ahead will be long, but they will also mark the threshold of your becoming officers of the court and, and, more than that, lawyers who must decide whose side of history you will stand on.
September 7, 2025
NUPL
The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers is a nationwide voluntary association of human rights lawyers in the Philippines, committed to the defense, protection, and promotion of human rights, especially of the poor and the oppressed.

To the brave souls about to enter the halls of bar testing centers, we salute you. The days ahead will be long, but they will also mark the threshold of your becoming officers of the court and, and, more than that, lawyers who must decide whose side of history you will stand on.

The law has too often been used as a weapon by the powerful to protect their wealth and privilege. We see it in the billions lost to flood control projects while communities drown, and in the way leaders like Vice President Sara Duterte elude accountability. The bar you are about to take is not only a test of knowledge. It is also a test of resolve: whether to accept the order as it is, or to use the law in the service of change.

What the country needs are lawyers who will stand with the poor and the powerless. Lawyers who will defend workers, farmers, women, indigenous peoples, and all those pushed to the margins. Lawyers who will take the less traveled road of sacrifice and solidarity.

As you sharpen your minds for the examination, also take time to search your hearts. Pass the bar, yes—but more importantly, do not let the bar pass you by without reflecting on what kind of lawyer you will become.

May you carry with you the courage to fight impunity, the openness to learn from the people, and the conviction that justice is found not in statutes alone, but in the struggles that bring them to life.

Padayon, future lawyers! The people await you.

#BeTheBestLawyersMoneyCannotBuy

Read more

In the Service of the Filipino People

In the Service of the Filipino People

NUPL Vice President Atty. Angelo Karlo Guillen and Secretary General Atty. Josa Deinla with lawyers from the Kennedy Human Rights Center and Kerry Kennedy at the Capitol in Washington D.C.

Philippine Defeat in UN Security Council Bid Shows Human Rights Record Cannot Be Ignored

Philippine Defeat in UN Security Council Bid Shows Human Rights Record Cannot Be Ignored

The Philippine government finds paths only to new methods of repression and enforces the peace of the grave at home. Human rights monitors, including Karapatan, document a continuing pattern of violence: extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests, and widespread attacks on rural communities. On April 19, state forces killed 19 people in Toboso, Negros Occidental, including civilians standing in solidarity with farmers asserting their land rights.

On the Denial of the Petition Challenging the Terrorist Designation of Cordillera Peoples Alliance Leaders and the Constitutionality of the Anti-Terrorism Act

On the Denial of the Petition Challenging the Terrorist Designation of Cordillera Peoples Alliance Leaders and the Constitutionality of the Anti-Terrorism Act

The petitioners, all respected advocates for indigenous peoples’ rights and self-determination, sought judicial review of their designation as terrorists by the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC) in 2023. Their petition constituted the first—and, to our knowledge, remains the only—as-applied constitutional challenge to the ATC’s power to designate individuals and organizations as terrorists under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020.

Share This