By Gill H. Boehringer
The murder on October 10 of Niruh Kyle Antactico, a law graduate who had exposed corruption in construction contracts and related frauds, brought to eleven the number of lawyers killed under President Marcos Jr. in the 41 months of his tenure. Ten others survived murderous attacks.
The trend is seriously concerning: 7 of the 11 were killed in little more than a year. As there is some confusion about the numbers killed we list them by name below. We have noted reference to a list of 7 killed in a recent issue of Rappler, and a list of 8 in an earlier issue. Part of the confusion would be the survival of Lawyer Pendatu who was previously said by Rappler to have been killed.
We have now recorded 232 lawyers killed since 1977. There were 44 recorded survivors. Thus the total of murderous attacks on lawyers reached 276 in 28 years.
The research for our Report comes from the Monitoring Committee on Attacks on Lawyers of the International Association of People’s Lawyers, of which I am Co-Chair along with Prof. Stuart Russell.
Lawyers killed (11):
Atty. Danny Pondevilla
Dec. 20, 2022
The Atty. Was General Manager of Northern Negros Electric Cooperative, was found dead in the driver’s seat of his Honda CRV, with a gunshot wound at the back of his head, according to the police. Two “persons of interest” were tested for traces from gunfire but the tests were said to be negative.
