Peoples' lawyers
By Carlos Isagani Zarate
Inquirer News Service

AS a young and new lawyer in 1958, Fred Gapuz of Cagayan de Oro City was thrust into the whirlpool of the protest movement against the Parity Rights and the presence of US Military Bases in the country. A fresh graduate of the University of Santo Tomas then, he linked arms with noted nationalists, among them Claro M. Recto.

"It was almost half a century ago," he noted with a tinge of nostalgia. Yet, at 71, Gapuz is still fired up by the same "idealism" he embraced decades ago. Last July 23 in Davao City, he was elected chair of the newly organized Union of Peoples' Lawyers in Mindanao (UPLM), which was formed by an assembly of almost a hundred lawyers, paralegals and law students from the different regions of the island.

Why is he still in the thick of "human rights" lawyering after all these years? "It's my conviction; it's a continuation of what I started since nothing substantial has changed even up to now," he said. A veteran of the parliament of the streets, Gapuz, in 1984, was a founding member of the Concerned Lawyers' Union of Mindanao for Nationalism (Column).

UPLM members "commit ourselves to the cause and principles of peoples' lawyering," the group declared in its founding statement, which was read by Gapuz during a press conference last week.

"We make this commitment to the poor and dispossessed (of) Mindanao. They not only have the least in law but [they also] are perpetual victims of the law itself in our unjustly stratified social system where the interests of the privileged few dominate law and society. Thus, in essence, the peoples' lawyer is not only a legal advocate or defender but also an agent of change in society, [with a mission] to uplift the poor and the powerless. As peoples' lawyers, we believe that our interests and our issues cannot be dichotomized from the overall conditions of our people and the nation. Our (profession) carries with it the responsibility to serve and pursue the ends of justice," the UPLM statement also declared.

As in the other parts of the country, the reign of martial law galvanized the ranks of lawyers in Mindanao into fighting for freedom and justice. However, in the dictatorship's early years, only a handful of lawyers in the island joined the clamor for the humane treatment of political prisoners, respect for their democratic rights, their release from prison and the abolition of the then dreaded Presidential Commitment Order (which authorized warrantless arrests and indefinite detention). But this trend was reversed when the late Sen. Jose W. Diokno organized the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) in several areas of Mindanao, where more than half of the entire AFP was deployed at that time.

In 1983, Mindanao lawyers went into fasting in solidarity with political prisoners, under the auspices of the Church-backed Mindanao-Sulu Pastoral Conference.

The growing militarization of the island (as what is happening now), the increasing incidence of "hamletting," "salvaging," massacres, bombings, forced evacuation and other forms of human rights violations soon filled the calendars of human rights lawyers. However, while FLAG had established its presence in Mindanao, it did not have chapters in most of the island. On the other hand, the IBP in Mindanao had few chapters active in human rights lawyering. This "need of the times" led to the formation of Column in 1994. The new organization brought together members of FLAG and the Protestant Lawyers League of the Philippines (PLLP), lawyers assigned with the human rights committee of the IBP and many "independent" lawyers.

Soon thereafter, Column lawyers were in the front lines, leading mass actions and welgang bayan. Some of its members also headed Mindanao-wide mass organizations. In 1985, three of its members-Laurente Ilagan (Bayan Mindanao chair), Marcos Risonar (Column secretary general) and Antonio Arellano (Column chair)-were arrested and jailed by virtue of the Preventive Detention Action, a tool of repression during martial law. They were eventually called the "Davao Three." Their case is now immortalized in legal parlance as the "Ilagan Doctrine" and is recorded in 139 SCRA 349.

After Marcos was ousted in 1986, many Column members joined the government service as judges and prosecutors; others forayed into politics. Among them were Arellano, now a regional state prosecutor in the Visayas, and Silvestre Bello III, who became justice secretary and government peace negotiator.

Yet, many others continue with their "human rights" lawyering, Gapuz said. The same situation that led to the establishment of Column-the increasing number of human rights violations in Mindanao, especially in the Moro areas-has compelled the creation of UPLM, he added.

One difference, he said, is that "when we were in Column, we were concerned primarily with legal defense; but right now, we must not only legally defend (human rights victims), we must also help our people understand the structure that may have given rise to the situation because, whether we like it or not, do we really have a democracy? No, what we have is an autocracy, an elite democracy."

Another difference may be its composition. The UPLM has Shariah lawyers, law students and legal workers (paralegals, court employees, etc.) as members. Its governing council has permanent representatives from the Moro and Lumad groups.

"By organizing and broadening the Union of Peoples' Lawyers in Mindanao, we hope to add to the growing number of lawyers who are opting for the less traveled road of public interest lawyering," the UPLM founding statement said.

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