Soon, you will be part of a profession that plays an indispensable role in defending the truth and attaining justice. We urge you to look beyond personal ambition and financial success, and to keep in mind the ever-present need for lawyers in advancing a just and humane society.

The government’s ambition to exit the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) gray list or meet arbitrary prosecution quotas cannot, and must not, serve as a justification for the harassment and criminalization of activists and rights defenders. These are people who take the blows so that others may live with dignity. To brand them as terrorists is a grotesque distortion of truth.

This is more than a matter of a solitary act of censorship; it is a chilling reminder that the past, with all its repressive mechanisms, has not fully released its grip on the present. The X-rating of Alipato at Muog is not an isolated incident but a symptom of a larger, more grievous attempt to control the narrative and to sanitize the history that those in power find inconvenient.

We demand justice for Jonas, Karen, Sherlyn, Dexter, Bazoo, and for all those whose names we may never know. We stand firm in our resolve to seek justice, to bring the truth to light, and to ensure that these injustices are never forgotten.

The Decision is a stark departure from jurisprudence concerning the fundamental rights to life, liberty, and security. As held in Deduro, the right to security exists independently of the right to liberty and it not only prohibits the State from arbitrarily depriving liberty, but also imposes a positive duty on the State to afford protection for the right.

His statements only reinforce the reasonable belief that he is most responsible for crimes against humanity committed in the Philippines in the context of the “war on drugs”. And that in effect, he intends to deprive victims of their chance at accountability for thousands of killings.

Let us set the record straight: the conviction of the four Caloocan City police officers is the culmination of a long and arduous struggle for justice within an entrenched architecture of impunity in the Philippines.

Today’s triumph is a comfort to the family of Luis and Gabriel Lois and a sigh of relief for us, the private prosecutors, our clients and friends in Rise Up for Life and for Rights, and others who supported this quest for justice. However, in terms of scale, today’s legal victory is just a footnote in a bloody chapter that has yet to end as bodies continue to pile up until today.

Thank you and we will not fail you as the poor, oppressed and exploited in our society and even in the world need us to be on their side.