Dangerous Precedent by A Dangerous President
Initiatives for Dialogue and Empowerment through Alternative Legal Services, Inc. (IDEALS, Inc.) vehemently condemns the arrest and arbitrary detention of the three young lawyers from the Desierto & Desierto Law Firm.
Yesterday, the three lawyers of the firm, the legal counsel of one of the owners of Times Bar in Makati, were tasked to monitor the Southern Police District, then implementing a search warrant at the bar allegedly under investigation and dubbed as a drug den. They were arrested and detained for alleged obstruction of justice while they were merely taking notes and photographs of the procedure.
IDEALS believes this deplorable act to be an example of the increasing audacity of these State agents to commit human rights violations and violate both national and international laws and norms.
Presidential Decree No. 1829 clearly defines the acts considered as obstruction of justice — acts that knowingly or willfully obstruct, impede, frustrate, or delay the apprehension of suspects and the investigations of criminal cases. Discreetly taking notes and photographs of a supposedly legitimate police operation, without hindering the procedure, does not violate any law.
Moreover, our Bill of Rights and even a United Nations resolution recognized the need to protect lawyers and citizens from these violations as they are essential to the protection of human dignity and respect for human rights. Unfortunately, acts such as these betray the reality that we have a government that is not interested in these domestic and international principles.
We highly respect the police’s duty to enforce the law. But as fellow agents of justice, lawyers also have the legal duty to protect the interests of their client and to ensure no malicious or unlawful acts accompany any police operation.
As the country experiences the further degradation of the rule of law from the administration’s policies, IDEALS, Inc. strongly demands accountability from the erring authorities. We cannot allow the continuous erosion of our democratic institutions.
We urge these law enforcement agencies to respect human rights and fervently uphold the law they swore to obey. We believe that respect for human rights and the respect for human life are not conflicting virtues. We call for a speedy resolution of the detention of the three young and vigorous lawyers.
We therefore call for the State to re-evaluate its procedures of law enforcement so that incidents such as these do not become the norm.
As the highest authority in the country, we urge the President, especially as a lawyer himself, to take the lead in this call to respect the law.
This serves a dangerous precedent. We want our government to prove that life and rights are still respected in this country.