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Japer Gurung (right) and Junior Ramos speak during a press conference organized by the National Task Force to End the Local Communist Armed Conflict at the BJMP premises in the city of Olongapo. (Photo by Joanna Rose Aglibot)
OLONGAPO CITY – The two Aetas who were the first known individuals to be charged with terrorism under the Antiterrorism Act (ATA) on Wednesday (February 10) said they were eliminating the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) as your legal advisor.
Japer Gurung and Junior Ramos spoke at an online press conference organized by the National Task Force to End the Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac) at the premises of the Office of Prison and Penology Administration here where they are being held.
The two said they wanted to obtain legal services from the National Commission for Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) and the Public Prosecutor’s Office (PAO).
“We want NCIP and PAO because we are starting to see that they wanted to help,” Gurung said in Filipino.
He added: “NUPL said if we don’t sign we will rot in jail. We have no education, so we are easily tempted. “
Gurung was referring to the request for intervention that was presented at the Supreme Court hearing on oral arguments on the Anti-Terrorism Law.
But NUPL-Central Luzon said the two men’s accounts of their illegal arrest, arbitrary detention and torture were “well documented” and “not repudiated.”
“No force, coercion, bribery, deceit or any other means was used that would vitiate their will to obtain their full, prior and informed consent with respect to their Petition for Intervention that attacks the constitutionality of the Antiterrorist Law”, NUPL-CL said in a statement.
The NUPL-CL said that until Wednesday’s demonstration by the attorney general during the ATA’s oral arguments, they had no idea of Gurung and Ramos’s alleged denial of having freely consented to the filing of the Intervention Petition.
“What we know is that representatives of the NCIP, including a lawyer, visited and spoke without our knowledge and in our absence,” he added.
The group said it technically remains the official attorney for Aetas, “unless a plea or motion is duly filed, confirmed as a volunteer, and granted accordingly by the court.”
“But if they want to change lawyers, which is their absolute right, we will fully respect their decision,” NUPL-CL said.
TSB
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