Today, October 18, 2025, the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) returns to its birthplace, Cebu, where it was founded in 2007.
NUPL is a ‘nationwide voluntary association of human rights lawyers as well as lawyers from mainstream bar groups or traditional legal practice who have expressed interest in human rights lawyering and advocacy in various degrees and capacities.’
I was still a Law student back then when around 89 lawyers from across the country, together with paralegals and fellow Law students, first assembled in Cebu in September 15-16, 2007 amid the increasingly repressive atmosphere under the then-unpopular Arroyo administration.
NUPL thus says in reference to its founding congress in Cebu: ‘The genesis of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) emerged from the urgent need for a structured response to the grave human rights violations during Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s administration.’ These abuses, including extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, and political harassment, along with the then impending passage of the Human Security Act of 2007, showed the urgent need for organized legal action and advocacy.
By 2016, during its 4th Congress in Legazpi City, Albay, NUPL had grown to more than 20 chapters nationwide. As of 2023, it has 258 member-lawyers in chapters throughout the country, making the NUPL the largest lawyers’ organization in the Philippines in terms of membership. If Law student members and paralegals are included, the number grows even larger.
For its 7th National Congress, the NUPL returns to Cebu with the theme: ‘Seven Congresses Strong: Advancing Peoples’ Lawyering in the Struggle for Rights, Justice, and Accountability.’ That the congress was first held in Cebu and has now returned for its seventh is a testament to Cebu’s enduring role in the defense of human rights, both historical and contemporary.
But as a member of the NUPL, I can say that it is more than just human rights lawyering. In the words of Boehringer (Athens Journal of Social Sciences, 2015), ‘progressive lawyers have formed organizations for the specificpractice of law in the interests of the people.’ So what exactly is peoples’ lawyering, and how is it distinguished from ordinary legal aid to the marginalized?
In the Philippine context, says NUPL chairman Edre Olalia in a 2013 presentation culled from the late NUPL founding chairman Romeo T. Capulong’s ‘Lawyering for the Oppressed and the Exploited Poor: Selected Speeches on People’s Lawyering in the Philippine Context’, ‘peoples’ lawyer’ means lawyering for the overwhelming majority of our people composed of peasants, workers, urban poor, small fisherfolk, indigenous people, women, youth, and migrant workers.
While traditional legal aid also serves the poor and marginalized, the key difference lies in the perspective of the peoples’ lawyer. A peoples’ lawyer helps the poor not just because they cannot afford legal fees, but because he or she understands that their poverty and the injustices they suffer come from an unjust system that must be changed. Thus, beyond providing competent legal services, a people’s lawyer is also deeply committed to social change as part of his or her work.
Says the late Atty. Capulong: ‘Unlike the typical pro bono lawyer, the people’s lawyers do not limit themselves to the generally accepted interpretation and use of the law to uphold and protect their clients’ interest. They know that in an elite-dominated society, the law is merely the expression of elite interests. Instead, they take a critical view of the law and what the law should be from the perspective of the disenfranchised or marginalized client.
‘Unlike the traditional practitioner who pleads the client’s cause during adversarial proceedings with the cold neutrality of a skilled legal technician, the people’s lawyers fight with passion and dedication to the legal as well as the social cause of the client, pleading such cause in and outside the courtroom or legal fora, in dialogue and negotiations, in networking and building alliances, in street rallies, in media, in legislative inquiries and hearings, and in symposia and conferences.’
At the 2007 NUPL Founding Congress in Cebu, then Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno delivered these resounding words: ‘By calling yourselves the ‘people’s lawyer,’ you have made a remarkable choice. You decided not to remain in the sidelines. Where human rights are assaulted, you have chosen to sacrifice the comfort of the fence to the dangers of the battlefield. But only those who choose to fight on the battlefield live beyond irrelevance.’