Joker Arroyo, who died this week at age 88, was my introduction to human rights in the Philippines.

All Filipinos have nicknames, but Joker was his real name, bestowed upon him by his card-playing father. But there was nothing funny about Joker’s work for FLAG, the Free Legal Assistance Group, during the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship in the 1980s. Marcos would throw opposition activists and suspected leftists into prison at will, and Joker, along with other human rights lawyers, worked tirelessly – and at times successfully – to get them out. It was dangerous work: three human rights lawyers were murdered in 1984 and 1985 and many others joined their clients in prison.

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