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Friday, March 29, 2024

Armed men torch 2nd school for lumad kids

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ANOTHER school for indigenous people in Agusan del Sur province was torched by men believed to be under the command of the Army’s 23rd Infantry Battalion, reports from the rights group Karapatan said  Thursday.

Students and teachers from the Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development said they saw the unidentified men set fire to the teachers’ cottage and a nursery of fruit and hardwood trees at the back of it.

Destroyed along with the school’s demo farm were books, school supplies, a sewing machine, rice stocks, a generator and audio-visual equipment.

Human rights groups in the community blamed the 23rd  IB, which has responsibility for the area.

Tribal leaders who went to the site said residents reported the men asked them repeatedly why they shouldn’t burn the school, given that it “causes trouble in the community.”

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“This is the height of impudence. The BS Aquino regime continues to ignore the public uproar over the lumad killings and the resounding call to pull out the military troops from the lumad communities in Mindanao and to dismantle the AFP-backed paramilitary groups. It has instead given the military carte blanche to go on a rampage against the people in remote villages,” said Karapatan secretary-general Cristina Palabay.

The school in Agusan del Sur is second branch of the agricultural learning center for indigenous people in Mindanao called the lumad, to come under attack.

In September, a teacher from the school in Lianga was killed and left in a classroom while two other lumad leaders were executed in front of terrified villagers.

Palabay said that extrajudicial killings continue, with new cases in Talaingod town, Davao del Norte and in Cabanglasan, Bukidnon being investigated.

Datu Manliro Landahay, a council member of the organization that runs lumad schools in Davao, was killed Nov. 7 by armed men identified as Donato Salangani and Maninggo Salangani, members of the Alamara paramilitary group of Alambi Salangani, under the command of the 68th  IB.

On Oct. 27, in Bukidnon, Mankombete Mariano, 48, was shot and then hacked to death by Manlumakad Bocalas, a member of Dela Mance group attached to the 8th IB. Mariano’s 10-year-old grandchild survived the shooting, but saw how his grandfather was hacked in the head, in the left shoulder and left thigh, Karapatan said.

On Thursday, the military questioned the legitimacy and results of an independent investigation of the lumad killings in Mindanao supported by church-led groups, likening the probe to a New People’s Army “kangaroo court.”

The military also insisted that it was the communist NPA rebels who were behind the killing spree against lumad in Mindanao.

“The 4th Infantry Division again challenges the mandate of this alleged International Fact Finding Mission as well as the validity and legality of its supposed findings. In this case, we find the accusers acting as investigators and eventually presiding as judge, similar to an NPA kangaroo court,” Lt. Col. Rey Pasco of the Army’s 4th Infantry Division said in a statement sent to The Standard.

“We are firm that the NPA and their allied legal organizations are the primary cause of conflict among the lumad and led to their killing. The NPA want complete domination over the IP communities, and their ancestral domain being a source of their manpower and resources for their armed violence. Let us free all lumad from being victims,” he added.

At the House of Representatives, a Manobo leader presented by the military and who identified himself as Jumar Bucales told a congressional inquiry that Emerito Samarca, the executive director of the Alcadev, was killed for “poisoning the minds” of the indigenous people.

“He poisoned the people. That is the reason, because the graduates of Alcadev go to the movement,” Bucales told North Cotabato Rep. Nancy Catamco, herself a Manobo, who chairs the House Committee on IP Communities.

Catamco had earlier accused lumad who fled their homes in terror of being “manipulated” by communist rebels and their front organizations.

She also echoed the military’s accusation that the schools set up by the tribes and non-government organizations teach their students to support the rebels.

Leftist lawmakers snubbed the hearing.

“How can the lumad [evacuees] expect an impartial hearing in an atmosphere where Representative Catamco is the principal accuser, witness and the judge rolled into one,” Bayan Muna Party-list Rep. Carlos Zarate said.

Also on Thursday, the Department of Education maintained that security forces are not allowed to occupy school premises amid growing protests over the militarization of schools for indigenous people in Mindanao.

“We condemn all forms of violence, especially as they occur in schools. We maintain that schools are zones of peace, where the safety and well-being of our students, teachers, and personnel are of utmost importance,” Education Secretary Armin Luistro said in a statement.

Rights group Save our Schools  on Wednesday  scored Luistro for his inaction on cases against IP schools, adding that they will file administrative charges against him.

 

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