IBP urged to revoke Duterte’s award
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 9 Oct) — Human rights lawyers urged the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) to revoke the “Golden Pillar of Law Award” bestowed upon former President Rodrigo Duterte as the recognition “risks normalizing grave breaches of ethical conduct as irrelevant to professional merit.”
In a statement, the Union of Peoples’ Lawyers in Mindanao (UPLM) asked the national leadership of the IBP to reconsider the conferment of the recognition on the detained former leader to preserve the integrity of the award and to ensure that its standards reflect the highest ethical obligations of the profession.
The group rejected the justification of the IBP for conferring its award to Duterte, which cited his 50 years of service in the legal profession and his status as a lawyer in good standing.
Under the IBP By-Laws, a lawyer in good standing is defined as one who has “paid all dues and assessments and not be suspended from the practice of law.”
The ULPM, however, maintained that this definition overlooks critical legal and ethical considerations that are fundamental to the integrity of the legal profession.
According to the group, the distinction of being a “pillar of law” goes beyond mere longevity in the practice of law.
“It necessitates a consistent and demonstrable adherence to the rule of law, justice, due process, and human rights—the very bedrock of our legal system,” it added.
In a separate statement, the Movement Against Disinformation (MAD) said until the IBP revokes the award and restores integrity to its ranks, “the law which it claims to defend will remain a hollow shell — devoid of conscience, stripped of compassion, and complicit in its own undoing.”
“What the organization calls a ‘service-based recognition’ is, in truth, a distortion of legal ethics and memory. What was framed as routine acknowledgement has instead exposed how institutions can manipulate procedure to sanitize power,” it said.
The MAD added that the IBP-Davao City chapter justified the giving of the award as objective, citing Duterte’s alleged 50 years in the legal profession, good standing, and lack of disciplinary sanction, and claimed that its decision to give Duterte such recognition was not political but a “mere application of national guidelines.”
But the group noted that for much of Duterte’s career, “law was not his calling but his credential.”
“Honoring him for longevity, detached from conduct, devalues the profession itself. It turns a badge of service into a parody of integrity. This award is a disinformation in institutional form. It recasts a figure accused of grave rights violations as a ‘pillar of law,” it said.
According to MAD, the recognition “erases history, repackages impunity as honor, and hollows out the word ‘lawyer’. Bureaucratic formalities — years on paper, dues paid, no conviction — become the new currency of worth. When form replaces conscience, law itself becomes complicit in the lie.”
The UPLM also expressed concern that celebrating a lawyer who is detained at the International Criminal Court (ICC) appears inconsistent with the spirit and letter of the Lawyer’s Oath.
The oath, the group said, is a “solemn vow to uphold the rule of law, justice, truth, and the rights of all people.”
“Duterte’s deadly war on drugs resulted in what the ICC Prosecutor termed a ‘widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population.’ This situation presents a profound conflict with the concept of a lawyer being in ‘good standing’ in the fullest sense of the term,” it added.
It said that honoring an individual who has a public record of ignoring due process in connection with his administration’s bloody war on drugs raises serious questions about the standards being promoted by the IBP.
The ICC charged the 80-year-old former President with three counts of murder as crimes against humanity. Based on the publicly redacted version of the Document Containing the Charges, the detained former leader has been accused of being an “indirect co-perpetrator” in the extrajudicial killings in connection with his war on drugs that allegedly took place between November 1, 2011, and March 16, 2019, during his tenure as mayor of Davao City and later as President of the Philippines.
The UPLM told the IBP to consider the impact of the award on the public’s trust in the legal interest, particularly on the victims of his war on drugs, many of them from the poorest and most marginalized communities.
“For them, Duterte’s award is deeply painful and may be perceived as a validation of the impunity they have suffered,” it said.
On Wednesday, the national office of IBP said it will “review its recognition protocols to ensure that future honors reflect both integrity of service and fidelity to the ideals of justice. In doing so, we affirm that to honor service must never be to forget accountability, and that reflection within institutions is itself an act of justice.”
“As the national organization of lawyers, the Integrated Bar of the Philippines remains bound by the discipline of due process. We do not confer guilt or grace beyond the reach of law. Yet we know that the law without conscience is hollow, and that the practice of law without compassion is incomplete,” it added.
The MAD, however, stated that to use the principles of “due process and presumption of innocence” as cover for an award is to “weaponize legal language for moral escape.”
“The IBP’s long meditation on law, compassion, and conscience collapses under its own contradiction. By defending this award with lofty prose, it engages in what we can only be called a legal sophistry – using the poetry of justice to conceal its betrayal,” it added. (Antonio L. Colina IV / MindaNews)
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