The Integrated Bar of the Philippines on Thursday expressed alarm over the killing of a judge and an assassination attempt on a prosecutor in Surigao City.
In a statement, the IBP condemned the killing of retired Judge Victor Canoy last Feb. 2 and the ambush try on City Prosecutor Manuel Tesioma last Monday, Feb. 6.
The lawyers in the city have also withdrawn their representations in drug-related cases due to fear following successive ambush incidents.
The IBP Surigao del Norte chapter has called for justice for the killing of Canoy and the failed assassination of Tesioma.
“Stop killing lawyers. Let us do our jobs as defenders of rights and due process,” the lawyers’ organization said.
“These attacks are against the very foundation of the profession and the institutions: to defend the accused and the accuser alike. Furthermore, as officers of the Court, we reiterate our commitment to ensure that all citizens must be accorded due process under the law,” it added.
The IBP said the incidents have caused panic among their members.
“We withdraw our representation from all drug cases starting today until all perpetrators are apprehended. We will not be able to do our jobs if our lives and the lives of our families are in peril,” it said.
The officers and members of the IBP chapter also held a motorcade in the city yesterday to “amplify our rage at the pointless violence targeting our colleagues in the legal profession.”
They protested the “shallow understanding of the legal profession, which prompted the accusation of our colleagues as alleged drug coddlers and protectors because of the drug cases that have been dismissed in their respective offices.”
They were hoping that their concerns would reach the Supreme Court, Congress and President Rodrigo Duterte.
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II has already ordered the National Bureau of Investigation to probe the killing of Canoy and ambush attempt on Tesioma.
Tesioma, 47, was shot outside his home by a motorcycle-riding gunman, four days after Canoy, 70, was killed in the same city.
Tesioma is the third prosecutor attacked under the administration of President Duterte. Mati City Prosecutor Rolando Acido was shot to death outside Mati City Hall of Justice on Oct. 26, 2016. Early this year, Quezon City Prosecutor Noel Mingoa was shot at closed range while outside a restaurant along Commonwealth Avenue.