“Where will the people turn to when public officers tasked to give them protection are the very suspects in these attacks?”
THE National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL)-Panay condemns even as it mourns the murder of our brother in the legal profession Atty. Anthony Trinidad.
He was driving home from a court hearing July 23 afternoon in Guihulngan, Negros Oriental when attacked gunmen riding in tandem on a motorcycle who sidled up with his car and opened fire.
Atty. Trinidad was pronounced dead on arrival in a hospital; his wife Novie Marie was injured.
Guihulngan PNP chief Lt. Col. Bonifacio Tecson told reporters that Atty. Trinidad sought protection from local PNP after receiving death threats from an anti-Communist group which tagged the slain lawyer “supporter” of the New People’s Army (NPA) and was in its hit list.
The murder of Atty. Trinidad casts another dark blot on the regime of President Rodrigo Duterte for its lackadaisical work and negligence in protecting its own people, if not downright complicity and participation in these extrajudicial killings (EJKs) attributed to suspected State-forces, and plain killings done by non-State thugs.
Since July 16, 2016 when President Duterte assumed office, 41 lawyers have been killed, of them seven were public prosecutors and five judges. None of the perpetrators were brought to justice. Atty. Trinidad is the latest entry in the growing statistics of unsolved killings.
Where can the victims and their families turn to for protection and justice when their very own government security forces fail to perform their sworn duties?
Where will the people turn to when public officers tasked to give them protection are the very suspects in these attacks?
We call on the Duterte government to observe the United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution 35 (HRC35), June 23, 2017 that mandates member states to protect human rights workers and lawyers.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council Europe adopted HRC35 in its European Convention to Protect Lawyers, January 2018. – NATIONAL UNION OF PEOPLE’S LAWYERS – PANAY, Iloilo City
