Rep. Neri Colmenares

  • Rep. Neri Colmenares

    CILIS Senior Associate

Rep. Neri Colmenares is a human rights lawyer and was the Senior Deputy Minority Leader of the 16th Congress during his three terms as a member of the House of Representatives.  He was recently elected Chairman of the National Union of Peoples Lawyers, a national association of human rights lawyers. Rep. Colmenares completed his law degree at the University of the Philippines and was awarded the Distinguished Alumni for Public Service in 2015.

He lectures on human rights, election law, international humanitarian law and oral advocacy in the Supreme Court Mandatory Continuing Legal Education program for Philippine lawyers.  He was one of the prosecutors in the historic impeachment trial of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona in 2012 which led to removal of the Chief Justice. In 1998 he argued before the United States District Court for the compensation of human rights violations victims in the Marcos human rights case.  He is currently the Vice President of the Confederation of Lawyers in Asia and the Pacific (COLAP).