MANILA, Philippines — The Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP), the mandatory national organization of lawyers in the Philippines, decried on Saturday the death threats against two Pasig City Regional Trial Court (RTC) judges and launched a national program to help protect officers of the court.

“It is no longer enough to mourn the erosion of civility in public discourse or to decry the growing hostility toward those in public service. We must act, while there remains something left to protect,” the IBP said in a statement.

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The IBP did not specify the security measures it planned to undertake, but included clear and standardized threat assessments and response controls, as well as a national red-flag and incident tracking system in all the group’s 83 chapters across the country.

READ: Pasig judges receive online gunman threats

“This is not only a matter of safety. It is a matter of justice. For a justice system cannot function when those who sustain it are asked to do so unprotected,” said the IBP.

The IBP is now led by lawyer Alan Panolong, the group’s first Maranaw president, who was inducted on July 1 to serve until 2027.

“The recent threats directed at judges of the Pasig Regional Trial Courts strike at the heart of judicial independence,” the IBP said.

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“These are not mere provocations. They are deliberate assaults on the dignity of judicial office and an insult to the moral promise of justice in a democracy that claims to be governed by law,” it added.

The IBP pledged continued coordination with courts, law enforcement agencies and oversight bodies, including the Supreme Court’s Office of the Judiciary Marshals (OJM), which was created in 2022 to address the killings of at least 54 lawyers during the administration of former President Rodrigo Duterte.

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The killings of lawyers included that of retired Court of Appeals associate justice Normandie Pizarro, whose mutilated body was found in Capas, Tarlac, in 2020. The magistrate was allegedly abducted and murdered by a group that included physician Ramon Pangan.

The OJM is under the leadership of retired general Manuel Gaerlan, who has had extensive experience in the military and police and was appointed in March as the first Chief Judicial Marshal.

Repeat experience

The IBP, along with the National Union of People’s Lawyers, was also crucial in curbing the killings of lawyers under Duterte and the formation of the OJM, which was proposed by Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta with the US Marshals Service as a model.

SC spokesperson Camille Ting said last week that the high court already ordered Gaerlan to investigate the death threats against the Pasig RTC judges in coordination with the Philippine National Police and the National Bureau of Investigation.

“The probe aims to identify and apprehend the perpetrator and pursue the appropriate legal actions. To protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation and the safety of those concerned, further details remain confidential at this time,” Ting added.

Based on screenshots provided by the Supreme Court, one of the emails sent at 3:24 a.m. on July 16 read in Tagalog: “Judges at the Pasig Hall of Justice should be careful. On July 16, 2025, two of them will be shot in the middle of a hearing. Stay vigilant. Judges are our targets today.”

Another email sent at 8:48 a.m. that same day said: “The gunmen are already in position. Don’t take any chances. Evacuate immediately.”

But Ting said the SC will continue to uphold judicial independence and “judges will continue to carry out their duties with integrity and calm resolve, guided by fairness and the rule of law,” she said. /cb