DAVAO CITY—More than 30,000 indigenous peoples, called lumads, have trooped to this city in what is becoming an annual practice, after the city officially announced it would host all tribal people wanting to partake of the blessings of gift-giving among Christians during the December holidays.
This year was quite different from previous years, though, the city’s welfare and environment officers said on Monday.
First, numbers were lower than the previous years and, second, tribal visitors have come from as far as Surigao in the north to Lanao del Sur and Zamboanga in the west.
Liwayway Caligdong of the City Social Services and Development Office said its shelter stations across the city have listed 11,126 families and, with an estimate of three members per family, the number could reach more than 33,000 already, one week after the tribes began to come down on December 1.
Barangay officers in Bunawan District told the BusinessMIrror that the lumads came from outside the city, in Santo Tomas, a rice-producing town of Davao del Norte.
A local news photographer here also told the BusinessMirror that he came across a tribal family at a gymnasium in Bankerohan, where the oldest public market is found. He said the family told him they came from Zamboanga.
City officials said Mayor Rodrigo Duterte has directed them not to turn away the lumads from outside the city, and accommodate them in the seven gymnasiums allotted for their temporary shelter up to December 26.
The usual problem is the lack of toilets for the thousands of lumads billeted in the gymnasium. Andy Lepardo, chief of the city’s drainage and maintenance, and road maintenance divisions of the City Engineer’s Office, said the lumads would have to find ways to have an orderly use of the toilets in each gym.