DOJ prosecutors, employees wear black to condemn attacks on fiscals

Prosecutors and employees of the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday wore black to condemn the series of killings and attacks on fiscals over the past years.

Among those who wore black were prosecutors conducting a preliminary investigation hearing and employees who heard Mass inside the DOJ main building.

Earlier, the country's organization of government prosecutors urged President Rodrigo Duterte and Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II to bring the perpetrators of attacks on fiscals to justice.

LOOK: DOJ prosecutors, employees wear black to condemn attacks on fiscals. | via @virgillopez pic.twitter.com/I1npVDFHYc

— GMA News (@gmanews) October 6, 2017

In a statement, the Prosecutors' League of the Philippines (PLP) condemned the series of ambushes, some of them deadly, on prosecutors from May 2013 to September 2017.

The PLP cited, among others, the death of Quezon Assistant Provincial Prosecutor Reymund Luna who was killed on September 29 while on his way home from court hearings.

Luna was the sixth prosecutor killed in the last 11 months.

Mati City Prosecutor Rolando Acido was gunned down by two unidentified men on board a motorcycle while on his way to the Mati Hall of Justice on October 26 last year.

On January 11, Quezon City prosecutor Johanne Noel Mingoa, who used to work for Aguirre when he was still in private practice, was killed in front of a restaurant in Barangay Old Balara, Quezon City.

Four months later, Caloocan Assistant City Prosecutor Diosdado Azarcon was killed by masked gunmen on May 22 outside his residence in Barangay 63, Caloocan.

Rizal Assistant Provincial Prosecutor Maria Ronatay was gunned down during heavy traffic along Ortigas Avenue Extension in Taytay town on July 18 while former Mandaluyong City prosecutor Pablito Gahol was killed outside of a school in Mandaluyong on September 3.

"We are outraged by these unfortunate and untoward events exposing government prosecutors to risks and perils of being ambushed and killed as we share the grief and sorrow of the families of these senseless incidents," the PLP said.? ?

Such brutality, the PLP said, “will not weaken our resolve as prosecutors for the people of the Philippines."

Expressing solidarity with the organization, Aguirre granted on Tuesday the request of the PLP for prosecutors to wear black on Friday to condemn the series of killings of prosecutors.

Aguirre also said all prosecution offices nationwide may require their employees and staff to wear black "only to express their grief."  — Virgil Lopez/RSJ, GMA News