Nov. 13 2016, 2:00 p.m. – AN ORGANIZATION of human rights lawyers took to España Boulevard to protest the Supreme Court’s decision to allow the burial of the remains of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
The protest, held an hour before the start of the second Sunday of the bar exams in UST, was led by the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL). They were joined by bar examinees and Martial Law victims.
“Studying the law, taking the bar, and becoming a lawyer becomes relevant and meaningful only when it serves justice,” the NUPL said in an statement.
“It is precisely now, when the law is being downtrodden and diminished by skewed reinterpretation, that good lawyers of the people are needed,” the statement said.
The NUPL called last week’s Supreme Court ruling a “dark night in our legal history.”
The protesters wore black shirts as a symbol of mourning. NUPL Chairman Neri Colmenares and Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Carlos Zarate attended the protest.
Colmenares filed last August one of six petitions opposing the Aug. 7 memorandum issued by Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana to the Armed Forces of the Philippines, ordering the military to prepare a hero’s burial for Marcos at the cemetery in Taguig.
The memorandum was pursuant to a “verbal order” by President Rodrigo Duterte. Paul Xavier Jaehwa C. Bernardo
