NUPL receives Kennedy human rights award for fighting state abuses

MANILA, Philippines – The National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) received the 2026 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award in Washington, DC, on Friday, June 5 (Manila time), for their nearly 20 years of helping victims of human rights abuses. 

“We accept this award as an anchor of our shared struggle. It binds our reality to yours, forces us to look at each other, to disrupt myths that keep us complacent, and to refuse to make peace with an orderly tyranny,” NUPL secretary general Josalee Deinla said. 

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Now in its 43rd year, the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award recognizes individuals and organizations who “stand up to oppression, even at great personal risk, in the nonviolent pursuit of human rights.”

Deinla, who received the award on the NUPL’s behalf, dedicated the recognition to its slain members and those who stood up for the marginalized. She emphasized that some people will continue resisting as long as abuses and rights violations remain. 

“Ours has never been an easy path, but we will stay the course knowing that movements grounded in the people’s struggle are built to last,” she said. 

Since its establishment in 2007, the NUPL has been advocating for victims of unlawful killings and detention. It also represented victims of former president Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs locally, and is currently assisting some of them in the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) proceedings. 

“A drug war that killed tens of thousands of poor Filipinos, where uniformed killers received commendations instead of charges, and perpetrators are allowed to flee, coddled by their powerful peers,” Deinla said of Duterte’s drug war. 

Duterte remains detained at the ICC after judges confirmed three counts of crimes against humanity against him in April. His drug war, according to several human rights groups, killed nearly 30,000 people. 

In her speech, Deinla also cited the military operation in Toboso, Negros Occidental, that killed 19 individuals in April. She said findings from the incident pointed to signs of summary executions and the use of lethal force against already incapacitated persons. (READ: In the Public Square: Understanding Toboso)

“These are the daily lives of millions of Filipinos. When they rise and organize, they are labeled communists-terrorists. Then, too often, they are arrested, disappeared, or killed,” she said. 

Deinla further recognized the legal profession’s task, reminding her fellow lawyers to “never [forget] that behind every hearing, every jail visit, every late night pleading, are people whose lives have been made harder by a system that was never built for them.” – Patricia Fontilar/Rappler.com

Patricia Fontilar is a journalism student at the University of the Philippines Diliman and the managing editor of Tinig ng Plaridel, the official student publication of the UP College of Media and Communication. She is currently a Rappler intern.