Teachers reluctant to return to work in strife-torn Midsayap

COTABATO CITY — Education officials in Midsayap, North Cotabato are worried about the adverse impact to children of the closure of schools in areas affected by last week’s hostilities.

Efren Mantawil, supervisor of public schools in the strife-torn villages of Rangaban, Mudsing, and Sambulawan, said teachers are reluctant to return to work due to the unstable situation in areas where soldiers and guerrillas of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) figured in running gun battles last week.

The hostilities, sparked by the plunder of farming communities in the three barangays by some 200 rebels, displaced some 6,000 villagers, who are now mostly staying in public schools near the Midsayap town proper.

Midsayap Mayor Romeo Araña, chairman of the municipal peace and order council, said teachers in other barangays surrounding Rangaban, Mudsing and Sambulawan were forced to suspend classes to allow evacuees to use school buildings as temporary evacuation sites.

"We cannot also just allow grade school pupils to be out there because tension is still high and their parents are so worried of their safety," Araña told reporters.

Mantawil said they can only resume classes in public schools if they see the MILF and the military complying with the low-level peace pact forged by the joint ceasefire committee last Sunday.

Araña, citing feedback from evacuees, said some rebels used the closed public schools as "harboring sites" at the height of the Jan. 25 to 28 hostilities.

"We cannot blame the parents of school children if they refuse to let their children go to school, even if there are assurances from the ceasefire committee that both sides have started complying with the peace agreement," Araña said.

A 50-year-old evacuee, who asked to be identified only as Salik, an ethnic Maguindanaon, said the rebels who occupied their village had left but not before emptying their houses of valuables. They also brought with them their farm animals.

Henry Salvacion, a farmer, recalls that he and members of his family have evacuated more than a dozen times since 2000 due to the recurring attacks by MILF rebels on their farms and during harvest season.

Another farmer, Ernesto Bautista, said he found his makeshift warehouse already empty when he returned to check their house yesterday. It was filled with more than 20 sacks of palay when they left.

Araña said relief workers attending to the evacuees have recorded several cases of dysentery among children the past two days, an indication that living conditions in the evacuation sites are getting worse. — John Unson, Edith Regalado