Palace: 'Hamleting' of Lumads will be for their own good
MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte's supposed plan to 'hamlet' Lumad communities will be "for their own good and safety," the Palace said Wednesday.
Duterte on Tuesday said he would counter an ongoing communist insurgency by implementing a “hamlet” program that would prevent indoctrination and recruitment by rebels operating in parts of Mindanao.
“I have to be the one to say this first so that they won’t make up false stories. I will hamlet them. Why? Because if they remain scattered they are really in danger. I cannot get their loyalty if they are scattered because they are afraid to be far from each other,” Duterte said in a speech in Davao City.
Asked about the plan, presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo said he will need to ask the Department of National Defense for details. He said, however, that the move is meant to "to protect [the Lumads], to shield from them from harassment or from undue influence... indocrination coming from the Left for their own good and safety."
The Armed Forces of the Philippines has said that most NPA rebels in Mindanao are from the Lumad communities. Issues on the exploitation and development of ancestral land, which would require consent from the communities have been a source of tension in Lumad areas.
“Now I will hamlet them. You natives won’t be able to say that you’re being imprisoned. But I will make a secure place for you that will be your territory for the meantime. I will be the one to decide whether you’ll be given arms. No one else will be able to enter. You will be the ones who will guard it,” Duterte also said Tuesday.
Hamletting—or clearing an area of an alleged rebel presence and concentrating a population in a certain area for tighter military control—practiced by the US-backed South Vietnamese army in the early 1960s.
The program, which involved the forced relocation of thousands of Vietnamese, was seen as a failure and South Vietnam, officially the Repulic of Vietnam, ceased to exist in 1975.
Ousted dictator Ferdinand Marcos also used the controversial method which failed to defeat the same insurgency it will be used against in the present day.
Since peace negotiations with the rebels collapsed, Duterte has formally designated the Communist Party of the Philippines and its 3,800-strong New People’s Army as terrorist organizations. A petition for the proscription of the two groups is pending in a Manila court. — Ian Nicolas Cigaral
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