The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) decries the death threats received by a people’s lawyer in Negros and the related attempted abduction and harassment of two NGO workers in the island. The threats against Atty. Rey Gorgonio stem from his service to workers and the poor and should be investigated and stopped immediately.

Atty. Gorgonio, chairperson of the Negros chapter of the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL), is the lawyer of many clients from the labor movement – BPO organizer and community journalist Anne Krueger, workers belonging to the National Federation of Sugar Workers or NFSW, activist jeepney drivers, among lawyers. He is a lawyer who stands up for workers’ labor and human rights and we are standing up for him in condemning the threats that he is receiving.

Last January 25, Joselito Macapobre, staff member of NGO Paghidaet sa Kauswagan Development Group (PDG), received an SMS text containing a death threat intended for Gorgonio. The message in Bisaya read, “Gorgonio shouldn’t be too brave. All kinds of bravery end up in silence. None of his positions or titles will matter once he is silenced. Do not be like him. Or you may suffer the same fate.”

On January 18, meanwhile, three unidentified men attempted to abduct Macapobre by forcing him to ride a black pick-up truck in the town of Candoni in Negros Occidental. Before this incident, state forces paid a visit to Macapobre’s house to accuse him of being a member of armed rebel group New People’s Army or NPA. Macapobre served as a witness for a PDG colleague who faced a terrorism financing case, which was junked by the courts.

On January 17, another PDG staff member, Analyn Mirano, received a text message from an unknown number. The sender claimed to be from the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency or NICA and asked her to become a paid informant for the military and threatened harm to her and her family if she refuses.

We do not take the threats against Atty. Gorgonio lightly, as these bring to mind the extrajudicial killing of Atty. Benjamin Ramos, former secretary-general of the NUPL in Negros, in November 2018 by suspected military personnel. Atty. Ramos was redtagged, surveilled and harassed before he was gunned down.

The Commission on Human Rights and other government agencies should look into these incidents in Negros, which follow the long record of human rights violations in the island since the Rodrigo Duterte presidency. The country’s courts should issue protection to Atty. Gorgonio and the PDG staff members. The Ferdinand Marcos Jr government should stop targeting NGO workers and lawyers in its attempt to silence dissent and in the guise of fighting the armed insurgency.