ICHRP Canada Salutes Edre Olalia and Fellow IBP Human Rights Awardees

ICHRP Canada proudly congratulates Atty. Edre Olalia as one of the first recipients of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) Human Rights Award. Atty. Olalia has been a long-time ally and valued friend of ICHRP Canada, serving as a speaker at the ICHRP-Canada founding assembly in May 2019 in Ottawa and actively supporting its ongoing initiatives.

At the awards night in Quezon City on December 5, Atty. Olalia was recognized as the awardee for Luzon, alongside Kristian Jacob Lora for the Visayas and Antonio Azarcon for Mindanao. All three are officers and members of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL), an organization renowned for its courageous advocacy for the marginalized. The IBP introduced these awards to honor lawyers with proven track records in human rights advocacy, whose work has significantly advanced the promotion and protection of human rights. The selection panel included retired Supreme Court senior associate justice Antonio Carpio.

Atty. Olalia’s legal career spans more than three decades. A defining moment came in 1995, when he assisted Atty. Romeo T. Capulong in the case of Flor Contemplacion, a Filipina domestic worker wrongfully convicted in Singapore. Although Contemplacion was executed, the case solidified Olalia’s resolve to champion justice. His notable work includes defending Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipina domestic worker who narrowly escaped execution in Indonesia and is now on the path to returning home, as well as securing the conviction of General Jovito Palparan for the disappearance of two student activists in 2006.

As Chair of the NUPL and Transitional President of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL), Atty. Olalia has taken on cases involving extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and political repression. His advocacy extends beyond Philippine courts to international platforms like the UN Human Rights Committee and the International Criminal Court, ensuring the voices of the oppressed are heard. He also serves as Legal Consultant to the Peace Negotiating Panel of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).

ICHRP Canada proudly honors Atty. Olalia’s contributions, alongside those of Kristian Jacob Lora and Antonio Azarcon. Their work remains a beacon of hope and inspiration in the fight for justice and human rights. Congratulations to all the awardees! 

With self-effacement, I humbly accept this honor to be one of the awardees of the 1st IBP Human Rights Award. 


As far as I know, this is the first of its kind in the country even as formally recognizing the work of human rights lawyers by the Bar has been long in coming. 


I share this recognition to my co-nominees who deserve to be up here and to my co-awardees who have the same feather as mine. I wish though that in the future equally worthy women human rights lawyers will be chosen.


I thank the present IBP leadership for this admirable idea. I thank my nominator and clients who submitted statements that could be mistaken as eulogy-like pieces fit for a parangal. I extend my appreciation to the esteemed panel of judges whose integrities are unimpeachable and who have given unassailable credibility to the process.


While what you have bestowed on me personally is not a waiver of a lifetime IBP membership fee, it will last beyond my lifetime.


What does this award mean?


It is an extraordinary recognition by one’s own peers. It is an acknowledgment of people’s lawyering as a legitimate field of practice. It provides additional protection against attacks on human rights lawyers. It is a vindication from the struggles with kith and kin on one’s choice in life. Finally, it hopefully will be a source of inspiration to others.


But this award is really not personal to me but is effectively in representation of many others especially NUPL members past, present and future who plod every single day to slay the dragons of injustice. Each and every human rights lawyer equally deserve this recognition.


We salute our mentor Romeo Capulong, my good friend Ben Ramos and many others who went ahead of us with their boots on. Many pioneers of the human rights lawyers species should have been honored earlier, for I already belong to the fourth generation. Many others have gone, have left, got lost, changed course, while a few stayed behind and yet many are jumping in.


This award is a validation of our clients’ appreciation: from the Flor Contemplacions to the Mary Jane Velosos and many other poor, oppressed and persecuted in our society. You own this award. 


For me this award is not about prestige or status, much less translate to higher attorney’s fees nor increase in one’s fair market value as I have already chosen to immerse myself in people’s lawyering (called pro bono in Latin but pronounced puro abono in Filipino).


In a nation where lawyers abound and battalions are added every single year, justice is inaccessible to many. We at NUPL took the unbeaten path, taking on causes and clients what many of our fellow lawyers do not, cannot or will not handle. 


As a former Chief Justice said at the Founding Congress of NUPL 17 years ago, we have “chosen to sacrifice the comfort of the fence for the dangers of the battlefield.”


For us at NUPL, it is not merely the “rule of law” in the abstract and without context but the “rule of justice’ in the concrete as law must be for the rights, interests and benefit of the people.


Atty. Capulong always tells us at the PILC (and which I capsulized later in English): “Kung ang clients natin mismo matatapang, dapat tayo matatapang din” (We have brave clients. They deserve brave lawyers.) 


On top of moral fortitude is integrity, which I expressed in the catchphrase that “ we may not be the best lawyers money can buy but we are the best lawyers money cannot buy”. A people’s lawyer must not only have competence, compassion and commitment but consistency and credibility.


This award also provides a further shield against vicious “red-tagging” of comrades-in-law including yours truly.


This recognition is a sort of vindication against struggles with our families, colleagues, friends and classmates who cannot, do not and will not understand fully why we took this option.


Finally, the message that it brings hopefully would inspire others even as I am myself reinvigorated with renewed zest as we refuse to sit idly by but stand up and fight for what is just.


So, for us who have made or will make a “remarkable choice” as “only those who choose to fight on the battlefield live beyond irrelevance,” one of the greatest rewards perhaps is to see more of us who will take this tortuous journey with the people we serve.