Press Statement – December 20, 2006
Today, December 20, human rights advocates from KARAPATAN join thousands of people all over the country in bidding farewell to the lawyer who served the poor and oppressed in Bicol and to the man who assisted him as he went about his work.
We express our deepest sympathies for his mother Corazon, wife Edith and their three sons. We mourn with them and join them in their call for justice as we pay tribute to the exemplary life of service and commitment to humanity of this lawyer who has chosen to serve clients "who have less in life" obtain justice.
Atty. Gojol would have turned 46 yesterday, December 19. Instead, he is being interred today at the Holy Cross Memorial Park in Novaliches, after assassins' bullets claimed the life of this lawyer who never declined clients who were poor and discriminated against.
In the morning of December 12, the day he and driver Danilo France were killed by cowardly death squads of the Arroyo regime, Atty. Gojol had just defended poor clients at the Municipal Trial Court in Gubat, Sorgsogon against the demolition of and eviction from their homes.
The death of Atty. Gojol is a big loss not just for his loved ones but also for the human rights community and the impoverished people of this country. He served as public defender of Bicolanos seeking reparation for the havoc being wrought by Lafayette mining company, which he sees as his contribution to stop large-scale mining and its devastation. Though not wealthy, he gives free legal services to eight out of every ten clients that he attends to.
He took up the case of consultant to the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) Sotero Llamas, when the latter was illegally arrested in 1995, causing the suspension of the peace negotiations at that time. (Sotero Llamas was also shot to death in July of this year). Atty. Gojol took up again the case of another NDFP consultant, Danilo Borjal, when he was abducted and illegally detained in 1996. Cases of workers, peasants, women, urban poor and clients who cannot afford to pay lawyers' fees were taken up by Atty. Gojol who gave his services pro bono or free of charge. He was the untiring lawyer who helped Karapatan-Sorsogon in many of the human rights cases the organization handled.
KARAPATAN (Alliance for the Advancement of People's Rights)
Press Statement – December 20, 2006
References:
Marie Hilao-Erniquez, Sec. Gen. (Mobile No. 09065064188)
Ruth Cervantes, PIO (Mobile No. 09153002684)
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