STATEMENT OF UNITY: A COMMITMENT TO PEOPLES’ LAWYERING

First signed on June 27, 2009

We, law students of the UP College of Law have come together as UP

National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL), committed to the active defense,
protection, and promotion of civil, political, social, economic, and cultural
rights, especially of the poor and the oppressed.

The present dismal state of human rights in our country demands a more
organized approach in rendering competent legal services, with the use of
our legal education, skills, training, knowledge and experience, to the
marginalized sectors for the upholding and promotion of their rights and
freedoms.

We condemn in the strongest possible terms the escalating extrajudicial

executions, enforced disappearances, tortures, massacres, illegal arrests and
detention, militarization, religious profiling, political persecution, and other
forms of State terrorism and repression.

We indict the existing socio-politico-economic system that has spawned the

decades of exploitation and oppression of the farmers, workers, fisherfolk,
urban poor, women, youth, students, children, migrant workers, indigenous
peoples, Moro people, minority groups, political activists and human rights
defenders.

We have organized the UP NUPL as a vehicle for collaboration, coordination,

assistance and facilitation of legal services in the local and national levels.
We have set up the UP NUPL as a venue for advocacy on issues affecting the
rights of the people and an arena to serve them even more effectively and
efficiently.

Our active defense, protection and promotion of human rights cover the
peoples’ civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights, including the
advocacy and assertion of their inherent right to self-determination.

We affirm our national sovereignty and patrimony and oppose any attempt
to impose international and national legislation, legal measures and
enactments that curtail these liberties under any guise.

The NUPL shall prioritize its services and programs in favor of the rights,
interests and welfare of the poor and the oppressed in Philippine society —
the farmers, workers, fisherfolk, urban poor, women, youth, students,
children, migrant workers, indigenous peoples, Moro people, minority groups,
political activists and human rights defenders.
We shall vigorously pursue and avail all kinds of legal remedies and fora in
the national and international arena, including the mechanisms arising from
the peace process, to hold accountable the perpetrators of human rights
violations. We will propose specific recommendations and tools to ensure
respect for human rights and to contribute to the removal of impunity.

Consistent with our belief that there must be a just and lasting peace for our
peoples, we support the peace process and condemn all efforts to sabotage
or obstruct the meaningful resolution of the root causes of the country’s
armed conflicts. We denounce the political persecution of those involved in
the search for peace based on justice.

We shall campaign, advocate and lobby for the liberties, freedoms and rights
of our people as well as those of other oppressed peoples of the world.

We shall continue to close ranks for the protection of our colleagues under
threat and attack by virtue of the exercise of our profession, especially those
of us in the field of human rights advocacy. We do the same as well for the
welfare of the families of our colleagues who have been killed or attacked.

We in NUPL are not and shall not be cowed. We will struggle and stand by
our clients and their democratic rights. We shall continue to organize and
speak out.

We shall promote human rights lawyering as a viable professional

alternative, provide avenues for research, professional and political
education, development, cooperation and mutual support for our members.

We shall continue in establishing and strengthening solidarity linkages with

other national and international individuals, groups or organizations of
lawyers and non-lawyers.

Having united under the theme of the NUPL Founding Congress towards a
more relevant response to escalating human rights violations, we enjoin our
sisters and brothers in the legal profession, including law students
particularly those who are taking the present Bar examinations, paralegals
and legal workers, to come and join us in the service of the many who need
most our legal services in our common search for a just and humane society.