Last week President Aquino was subjected to severe criticisms in the tri-media — and by national and international journalist and press freedom organizations — for failing to fulfill his promises to expedite the prosecution of the accused in the 2009 Ampatuan massacre and to stop the killings of journalists. Already 15 have been slain under his watch.
Now, more widespread criticisms of the government and urgent demands for justice are being raised anew, as International Human Rights Day (Dec. 10) nears.
Among the strong voices raised are those of the indigenous peoples. It is but fair to provide space for the airing of their grievances, which centers on defending their ancestral domain. For them, defending their ancestral domain is akin to defending their right to live according to their culture and traditions.
Yesterday, a delegation of 70 leaders of IP communities from all over Mindanao began a 10-day symbolic protest-travel to Manila, dubbed as Manilakbayan.
The activity aims to call the government’s and the public’s attention to continued human rights violations against the lumads (IPs), and the dire impacts of large-scale mining and other government development projects on the environment, their livelihood and culture, and on the peasants in the lowlands.
Presaging the Manilakbayan, women from six national organizations went into action last Thursday, International Women Human Rights Defenders Day. Through messages written on indigenous woven cloth, they demanded a stop to the killing of women human rights defenders and the “plunder of our lands and resources.”
Under P-Noy’s administration, the protesters said, 15 IP women and children have already been killed by the state security forces. Among them were Juvy Capion, Marilen Valle, and Marlina Sumera.
Juvy Capion and her two young sons were slain, and her daughter was wounded, when soldiers of the Philippine Army’s 27th IB strafed their hut in Kiblawan, Davao del Sur, last Oct. 18. Juvy was a leader of Kalgad, a Blaan organization defending the Bong Mal community’s ancestral domain. Her husband, Daguil, who leads a pangayaw (traditional warfare) against the mining operations of Xstrata-Sagittarius Mining Co., is being hunted by the military.
The Blaans complain that since Xstrata-SMI came to their community they have been barred from tending their uma (upland farms) and from continuing the traditional aksafu (sharing the fruits of their labor with the rest of the community).
Almost every sitio has a military detachment, they point out, including one very near the community school. Juvy had accused the mining firm of using the military and the CAFGU to threaten the people opposing its operations in their ancestral land.
Last Nov. 17-18, a solidarity mission by 100 people representing the Justice for the Capion Family, Justice for All Network, documented its findings about the Oct. 18 massacre and the prevailing conditions in the Blaan communities. The mission’s report and recommendations will be presented to the Manilakbayan culminating activity at Mendiola Bridge on Dec. 10.
A parallel activity on Nov. 17-19, called the Interfaith Solidarity Mission in Defense of Indigenous Communities Fighting Impunity, was undertaken by 200 church people and human rights defenders in San Fernando, Bukidnon, and in Malaybalay where several families of the Tigwahan tribe had encamped at the provincial capitol grounds since Oct. 22.
The families trickled into the capital since Aug. 19, but they were deterred from setting up their encampment until 4,000 activists came to support them.
The mission documented, through interviews with IP residents and evacuees, the incidents of armed attacks on and harassments of the communities since the killing of anti-mining leader Jimmy Liguyon in San Fernando on March 2, 2012. The attacks and harassments are ascribed to the paramilitary group, named the New Indigenous New People’s Army, led by Alde Salusad.
Salusad had publicly acknowledged killing Liguyon, allegedly for being a “communist.” But the authorities have not arrested him, despite the filing of a murder charge in court and issuance of an arrest warrant against him on April 30.
The Bukidnon mission will also present its report at the Manilakbayan march-rally on Dec. 10.
Elsewhere in Mindanao come these reports:
• From Duphing Ogan, of the Mindanao-wide Lumad alliance Kalumaran:
“Since the start of the Aquino presidency, 1,017 families (5,725 persons) have been forcibly evacuated in the course of intense military operations carried out by the Philippine Army, most notably in Caraga, Northern and Southern Mindanao regions. These have brought great distress, especially to the lives of the Matigsalogs, Mamanwas, Dibabawons, Maguinda-nawons, and Manobos.”
• Genasque Enriquez, secretary-general of Kahugpongan sa Lumadnong Organisasyon, assails the renewed military operations resulting in displacements of IP communities. For the second time this year, he says, the people of Kitcharao (Agusan del Norte) have been forced to leave their homes — the fourth instance of forced evacuation in Caraga.
Clemente Bautista, of Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment, reports that 30 IP activists and 24 environmentalists have been slain under the P-Noy administration. With 13 killed, he notes, 2012 is the “bloodiest” for environmentalists since 2001.
A probable contributory factor: in October 2011 P-Noy approved the deployment in Mindanao of SCAAs (special civilian armed auxiliaries) funded by private corporations.
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