OVER 250 Manobo tribesmen in Lianga, Surigao del Sur denounced the Catholic Church-backed International Fact Finding Mission that is currently conducting an investigation into alleged military abuses against indigenous people, called lumad, the military said on Thursday.
According to a statement issued by the Army’s Fourth Infantry Division, the IFFM violated their “free and prior consent process” which supposedly requires that non-tribesmen who wish to enter a tribe’s ancestral domain should have the approval of the tribe concerned.
The military statement quoted Manobo Datu Ceasar Bat-ao as saying such approval should be determined according to the tribe’s customary laws and practices.
“They [IFFM] clearly do not respect our tribe. They cannot just intrude [into] our land and conduct an unsolicited investigation on our tribal conflict,” the military quoted Bat-ao as saying.
“We have our husayan [tribal justice system] which is recognized by the government thru Republic Act No. 8371 [Indigenous People’s Rights Act of 1997],” he said.
“We are begging them [IFFM] to let us settle our tribal conflict thru our customary laws and stop interfering. They are making it worst,” the statement added.
Sources in Surigao del Norte said Bat-ao was part of a group of Manobo leaders that has been dunning a mining company in the province for royalties although the mining firm’s claim covered an area that is supposedly the ancestral domain of the Mamanwa tribe.
The military statement also quoted one Datu Nahikyad, also known as Marcos Bocales, who described himself as a commander of the Bagani Tribal Territorial Forces, which is the group accused of executing three tribal leaders in Lianga town.
The killing of Manobo leader Emerito Samarca, head of a tribal school in the village of Diatagon in Lianga, sparked the exodus of lumad from their ancestral domain.
“Since the [Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army] entered our land, the tribal conflict began,” the military statement quoted Datu Nahikyad as saying.
“They have deceived our people to join the revolutionary movement and killed the ones who refused to. This have been happening for decades and no one wants to hear our voice as we cry for justice for all the victims of lumad killings perpetrated by the NPA.”