Some relatives of alleged victims of former president Duterte’s summary execution spearheaded a petition asking the Supreme Court to revoke his lawyer’s license, citing conduct unbecoming and other supposed violations of the lawyer’s Code of Professional Responsibility and Accountability (CPRA).
Listed as co-petitioners in the Duterte disbarment case filed January 17 were several known human rights leaders and group.
Duterte has not been doing lawyer’s work since leaving the government prosecution service in 1986 to become Davao City vice-mayor, mayor, congressman and then as the country’s president from 2016 to 2022.
Last month, however, the former president indicated he was ready to return to practice law so that he could defend Vice-president Sara Duterte-Carpio, his daughter, who is facing impeachment.
Human rights group, Karapatan, a petitioner in the disbarment case, took note of the former president’s intention to serve as lawyer for his vice-president and daughter.
“This petition for disbarment is especially relevant, since Rodrigo Duterte has presented himself as one of the legal counsels of his daughter, Vice-president Sara Duterte, who is currently facing at least three impeachment complaints,” said Karapatan Secretary Gen. Cristina Palabay. “We fervently hope the disbarment complaint will be given due course by the Supreme Court.”
The Karapatan official appealed to the High Court justices to “spare us from Duterte’s further antics and unabashed demagoguery. He degrades our public discourse on human and people’s rights but much, much worse, he attacks and seeks to destroy the human dignity of ordinary Filipinos.”
Aside from the Karapatan official, also listed in the disbarment case as petitioners were lawyer Vicente Jaime “VJ” Topacio; Llore Pasco (whose sons Crisanto and Juan Carlos were found dead on October 12, 2017, killed in an alleged police drug war operation) and Liezel Asuncion (widow of Bayan-Cavite coordinator Manny Asuncion, who was among the nine activists killed in the Bloody Sunday Massacre of March 7, 2021).
Also among the petitioners are Rosenda Lemita (whose daughter Ana Maria and son-in-law Ariel Evangelista were killed during the Bloody Sunday police raids) and Lean Porquia (son of slain Bayan Muna–Panay coordinator Jory Porquia).
The other petitioners are former Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo; Fr. Manuel Gatchalian, SVD; Sr. Eleanor Llanes, ICM; Hustisya Secretary Gen. Ofelia Balleta; Norma Dollaga; Orly Marcellana; Bayan Secretary Gen. Raymond Palatino; Tina-Agel Romero; and cultural workers Bonifacio Ilagan, JL Burgos, and Kiri Dalena.
“With Duterte’s invocation of his role as lawyer and prosecutor as some kind of authority in his recent testimony at the hearings at the House of Representatives and the Senate, we believe it is time for victims of human rights violations to speak up. It is time for us to appeal to the Supreme Court to reinforce how the law should work in the Philippines, how the law should shield victims of human rights violations as they seek justice and should ensure dignified and proper conduct in the practice of law,” said Topacio, son of NDFP consultants Agaton Topacio and Eugenia Magpantay who were extra-judicially killed in their home in November 2020.
Pasco, another relative of an alleged summary execution victim, said: “We want justice. I was there when Duterte testified at the Quadcom hearings and he was obviously trying to intimidate us. We ask the esteemed justices of the Supreme Court to protect us from people like him who use their status as a lawyer to try to make wrong and reprehensible things seem right.”
Duterte’s former presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo downplayed the disbarment case.
“The disbarment case against FPRRD (former president Rodrigo Roa Duterte) has no legal basis,” argued Panelo. He also said Duterte has not violated any law or charged with unethical conduct as a member of the Bar.
“A citizen cannot be called criminal without being convicted by a competent court of a commission of a crime,” Panelo added. “No admission was made on extra-judicial killings. They should read the transcript of the proceedings. All the statements on killings were all hyperbole. They will not stand in court.”
