When I first meet Ericson Acosta – cultural worker, activist, political prisoner – he looks at me with piercing, pensive eyes that hint at harrowing times, in the hands of those who represent the law. I cringe slightly as I introduce myself as a law student, embarassed that he might think I only came to dissect his situation and babble legal opinion. After all, most lawyers love cases that are provocative, controversial. His was all that and more.
Ericson caught the eye of soldiers in San Jorge, Samar in February 2011 because he spoke Tagalog in a Waray town. A former editor of UP’s Philippine Collegian, he was travelling through the province and working on research for local farmers. Before he knew it, the military had picked through his bag, confiscated his laptop and accused of being a high-ranking rebel – all apparently, because he was a techie in the mountains. Ericson was tortured, wrung for information, and brought to jail on the trumped-up charge of illegal possession of explosives.
His arrest and detention will eventually be a classic case for criminal procedure, a particularly agonizing subject in law school. There, professors drill into us law students the precise definition of “probable cause”, and the empirical standards with which a person may be held to answer for a crime. We’re also taught that due process is sacred, and every such violation beats a charge on technicality.
Because my organization the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) worked on Ericson’s case, I learned firsthand how almost all the rules were bent. I went to Samar myself to set some papers in order, and came face to face with a lackadaisical judiciary and bureaucracy. I miserably bungled that mission, but it compelled me to see beyond the legal.
Government lawyers via a Justice department resolution withdrew the information against Ericson, deeming the evidence too weak. In short, it was a mistake in the first place. The court thus had no other choice but to dismiss the charges because there no other complainants except for the military that, as implied by the resolution, had made up stories. Ericson was released last Tuesday. Yet no amount of platitude, procedural cure, or legalese obscures the fact that he lost two years of his life.
It is singularly frustrating and painful to see the law and law enforcement used to persecute the innocent, where it should have been to protect. Worse, it is depressing to battle with the thought that the law may not really have good intentions, that it was designed by the powerful to make the hapless more hapless, and ultimately, that it may not lead to justice.
If I meet Ericson – a husband and father, a free man – again, I have a nagging urge to apologize, as a person and also for the profession, for things that went wrong. It’s a guilt I find hard to leave behind, if not for the good men and women who teach me and my orgmates not to wallow in the law’s self-defeating aims. These people’s lawyers and their examples make us want to hold on to our souls all the more and believe that in our “godless” profession we can find redemption in service to the victims, the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized.
Sometimes we hesitate, sometimes we tremble, but the gravity of our task makes us plod on steady: we still have to prosecute those accountable for violations against Ericson, we still have to work for the release of all other political prisoners. Sans drama, sans grandstanding, this is our deliberate and resolute choice: to stand up and be the next generation of people’s lawyers.
Original published on The Philippine Online Chronicles http://thepoc.net/component/k2/17831-peoples-lawyering-and-ericson-acosta
Ericson caught the eye of soldiers in San Jorge, Samar in February 2011 because he spoke Tagalog in a Waray town. A former editor of UP’s Philippine Collegian, he was travelling through the province and working on research for local farmers. Before he knew it, the military had picked through his bag, confiscated his laptop and accused of being a high-ranking rebel – all apparently, because he was a techie in the mountains. Ericson was tortured, wrung for information, and brought to jail on the trumped-up charge of illegal possession of explosives.
His arrest and detention will eventually be a classic case for criminal procedure, a particularly agonizing subject in law school. There, professors drill into us law students the precise definition of “probable cause”, and the empirical standards with which a person may be held to answer for a crime. We’re also taught that due process is sacred, and every such violation beats a charge on technicality.
Because my organization the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) worked on Ericson’s case, I learned firsthand how almost all the rules were bent. I went to Samar myself to set some papers in order, and came face to face with a lackadaisical judiciary and bureaucracy. I miserably bungled that mission, but it compelled me to see beyond the legal.
Government lawyers via a Justice department resolution withdrew the information against Ericson, deeming the evidence too weak. In short, it was a mistake in the first place. The court thus had no other choice but to dismiss the charges because there no other complainants except for the military that, as implied by the resolution, had made up stories. Ericson was released last Tuesday. Yet no amount of platitude, procedural cure, or legalese obscures the fact that he lost two years of his life.
It is singularly frustrating and painful to see the law and law enforcement used to persecute the innocent, where it should have been to protect. Worse, it is depressing to battle with the thought that the law may not really have good intentions, that it was designed by the powerful to make the hapless more hapless, and ultimately, that it may not lead to justice.
If I meet Ericson – a husband and father, a free man – again, I have a nagging urge to apologize, as a person and also for the profession, for things that went wrong. It’s a guilt I find hard to leave behind, if not for the good men and women who teach me and my orgmates not to wallow in the law’s self-defeating aims. These people’s lawyers and their examples make us want to hold on to our souls all the more and believe that in our “godless” profession we can find redemption in service to the victims, the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized.
Sometimes we hesitate, sometimes we tremble, but the gravity of our task makes us plod on steady: we still have to prosecute those accountable for violations against Ericson, we still have to work for the release of all other political prisoners. Sans drama, sans grandstanding, this is our deliberate and resolute choice: to stand up and be the next generation of people’s lawyers.
Original published on The Philippine Online Chronicles http://thepoc.net/component/k2/17831-peoples-lawyering-and-ericson-acosta