IBP: Killing lawyers kills democracy

A "strong and effective" legal profession is one of the best safeguards against chaos and anarchy in a democratic society, the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) said Friday, as it denounced the unresolved killings of lawyers and judges in the country.

"When lawyers are made to live under threat of violence and even murder for performing their sworn functions, the rule of law is seriously degraded and those intending to subvert the law can do so with impunity," the IBP said in a statement. 

It also called on law enforcement agencies anew to resolve the killings "with dispatch" after the IBP lost another member in Rogelio Bato, the counsel of Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa and his son and suspected drug lord Kerwin, to an ambush in Tacloban City last Tuesday.  

Also killed was Bato's companion in the van, a female high school student identified in reports as Angelika Bonita. 

GMA News Online asked IBP president Rosario Setias-Reyes for data on lawyers killed in recent years and status of the cases but she has yet to reply as of posting time. 

A total of 26 judges, meanwhile, have already been slain while in service since January 1999, according to Supreme Court data presented by Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno on Thursday in her annual meeting with the press. 

"Most of them were ambushed, and shot point blank in broad daylight by unknown assailants," Sereno said, adding she is treating the security of judges "very seriously." — Virgil Lopez/RSJ, GMA News