On NTF-ELCAC’s tagging of NUPL’s statements regarding the deaths of five NPA members in Bilar, Bohol as “disinformation” and “travesty of justice”
The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) takes exception to the NTF-ELCAC’s claim that it is distorting the truth on the reported arrest, torture, and summary execution of five NPA members in Bilar, Bohol. Among them was Hannah Cesista, a bar passer and former secretary general of the NUPL-Cebu Law Students’ chapter. The NUPL and […]
March 1, 2024
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.

The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) takes exception to the NTF-ELCAC’s claim that it is distorting the truth on the reported arrest, torture, and summary execution of five NPA members in Bilar, Bohol. Among them was Hannah Cesista, a bar passer and former secretary general of the NUPL-Cebu Law Students’ chapter.

The NUPL and NUPL-Cebu statements are premised on reports, accounts, or counternarratives so far available, which precisely necessitate an independent investigation into the real facts and circumstances of Hannah’s death.

Personal choices made by members of NUPL, or any other group or organization, including the great costs and sacrifices they entail, are inherently independent decisions that we respect and acknowledge. To say that NUPL should explain why Hannah voluntarily and freely chose on her own what she chose to do is to also say that each and every personal choice of a member of NTF-ELCAC is always attributable to it. This is simply non-sequitur.

Hence, it is not incumbent on NUPL to prove what Hannah was. After all, the CPP-NPA has already publicly acknowledged her status. With our understanding of international law, however, we categorically reject her characterization as a “terrorist.”

If circumstances indeed confirm that Hannah was killed as an NPA, then her death would be attributed to her reported association with the group and not to her identity as an NUPL member wearing our logo and her law books in hand. This distinction verily underscores the insidious nature of red-tagging.

Once more, the NTF-ELCAC disregards the overwhelming disapproval by both the public and institutions such as the Supreme Court, the Office of the Ombudsman, and the House of Representatives of their incendiary practice of red-tagging. Their recent statements against NUPL only show how it has self-destructed and lost its justification for being. It comes as no surprise that relentless calls for its abolition, which have already been echoed by two UN special rapporteurs, persist unabated.#

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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.

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