13 FLAG lawyers killed, FLAG @ 50

They deserve first mention. So, before all else, here are the names of Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) lawyers who were killed, they who gave free legal assistance and put their own lives on the line in pursuit of justice:

Atty. Hermon Lagman from Metro Manila, last seen on May 11, 1977, was a victim of involuntary disappearance. He is the younger brother of Congressman Edcel Lagman, also a human rights lawyer, of Albay.

Atty. Zorro C. Aguilar of Dipolog City was shot and killed on Sept. 23, 1984.

Atty. Romraflo R. Taojo of Tagum, Davao del Norte was murdered on April 2, 1985, by unidentified men believed to be from a paramilitary unit under orders from the military.

Atty. Crisostomo B. Cailing, of Balingasag Misamis Occidental, was shot dead in his home on July 6, 1985.

Atty. Luisito S. Villanueva, of Calamba, Misamis Occidental, was murdered on Feb. 21, 1986.

Atty. Vicente Mirabueno, of General Santos City, was shot and killed in the public market on Feb. 6, 1988.

Atty. Alfonso Surigao Jr., of Cebu City, was murdered in his home on June 24, 1988.

Atty. Oscar Tonog, of Catarman, Northern Samar, was shot on Mary 21, 1989 and died the following day.

Atty. Antonio P. Nazareno, of Misamis Occidental, was shot and killed on Dec. 31, 1989.

Atty. Gil Getes, of Agusan del Sur, then provincial fiscal, was shot dead in the evening of March 4, 1990, in his home. It was believed that he was murdered because he had successfully prosecuted members of the Civilian Armed Force Defense Unit.

Judge Henrick Gingoyon, formerly of Cebu, was ambushed and killed near his home in Bacoor, Cavite, on Dec. 31, 2005.

Atty. Noel Archival, of Cebu City, was ambushed and killed on Feb. 18, 2014.

Atty. Rex Fernandez, of Cebu City, was ambushed and killed on Aug. 26, 2021.

FLAG celebrated its 50 years on Oct. 20, 2024, with a celebration at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani memorial grounds in Quezon City. Persons, who had benefited from FLAG’s assistance, I among them, came to celebrate and reminisce. Days before, FLAG held a conference attended by FLAG lawyers from all over the country, both original and next-generation members. As FLAG secretary general Ma. Socorro “Cookie” Diokno gushed, “We have five generations of FLAG lawyers here!”

Organized by former senator and human rights lawyer Jose W. Diokno along with former senators Lorenzo Tañada and Joker Arroyo in 1974, two years after then President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., declared martial law (1972) that lasted 14 years, FLAG was a lone voice in the wilderness during the first years of the dictatorship. People were being arrested and detained without charges, among them lawyers, church persons, activists, journalists, artists, labor leaders, farmers, and grassroots development workers. Countless others disappeared, never to be found again. Diokno himself, his co-FLAG founders and former senator Benigno S. Aquino Jr. (assassinated in 1983) were among the first victims of martial rule.

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A thousand steps per second

Incidentally, Task Force Detainees of the Philippines of the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines also celebrated its 50th anniversary yesterday. FLAG and TFD worked in tandem during those dark years. I had witnessed this myself.

FLAG “is an association of human rights lawyers from all over the Philippines who render their services free of charge, to promote the rule of law and respect for human rights in society.” FLAG lawyers have been in humanitarian legal services for five decades, “through eight administrations and 10 significant eras in Philippine contemporary history: martial law, the ‘new republic’, the restoration of democracy, Philippines 2000, corruption in the presidency, assumption by the vice president, the ‘strong republic,’ ‘the straight path,’ the war on drugs, and ‘the new Philippines.’” FLAG is the oldest and biggest human rights lawyers’ organization in the country.

During its 50 years of service, FLAG has handled some 9,052 cases and assisted 9,591 cases and counting. The numbers do not include farmers’ associations, communities, and barangays that suffered massacres, “hamletting” and demolitions.

FLAG rates its litigation success thus: “from a low of 66.89 percent in 1989 to a high of 79.11 percent in 1990.” On the average, says FLAG, it has won seven out of every 10 cases (72.92 percent) it had handled. In death penalty cases, however, FLAG had lost more cases than it had won. FLAG had represented “a little over one-third of all death row convicts; of the seven death inmates who were executed, five were FLAG clients.” That was when the death penalty was revived for a few years during the Estrada presidency. (I was present at the execution by lethal injections of one convicted rapist.)

FLAG handled the first amparo case that involved two brothers who were arrested and kept incommunicado by the military but who later escaped. FLAG won the case.

There is so much more that could be written about FLAG and their cases but space constraints prevent me. Mabuhay, FLAG, may your numbers increase exponentially.