President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to dismiss the petition of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers for protection against what they claimed to be continuing harassment by the administration and military on their members.
In a 35-page comment filed through Solicitor General Jose Calida, the Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, sought the dismissal of the petition for writs of amparo and habeas data filed by NUPL last month.
The Solicitor General argued that petitioners failed to prove or provide factual basis in their allegation that the President and other respondents—AFP Chief Of Staff Gen. Benjamin Madrigal Jr., Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr.—were responsible for the threats, harassment and intimidation against NUPL lawyers.
Petitioners miserably failed to allege, much more to adduce, such specific narration of facts necessary to establish that respondents committed through their own unlawful acts or omissions, acts constituting enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, or the threats thereof,” the chief state lawyer stressed.
The President and other respondents asserted that the allegations of petitioners are “based on amorphous and uncertain ground.”
“These alleged threats are, however, a mere amalgamation of facts based on newspaper clippings and unverified statements, threats more imagined than real, and exaggerated to create the ghost of a cause of action,” they said.