A NETWORK of teachers, academics and researchers has warned the military to keep their operations away from indigenous peoples’ (IP) alternative schools, roughly two weeks before the government and the National Democratic Front (NDF) head back to the peace table.
In the aftermath of the fourth Mindanao-wide conference of the Save Our Schools (SOS) Network, transformative education group Educators Forum for Development (EfD) demanded on Thursday that the Duterte administration pull out its troops in the countryside. It said the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) continues to conduct operations in IP communities, resulting to numerous cases of human-rights violations, including the right to education.
At present, the SOS Network has recorded a total of 15 cases of military encampment in five lumad schools following President Duterte’s declaration in February to cancel the formal peace talks between the government and the NDF. Since then, the AFP has intensified its attacks in rural areas, particularly in IP communities in Compostela Valley, Sarangani and Abra, the EfD said.
The operations, the group said, involved aerial bombings, shelling and strafing. It was also during this period that Ramon and Leonela Pesadilla, a couple who has donated land for the construction of a lumad school, were murdered inside their home in Compostela Valley.
The EfD believes the operations put schools and its supporters in the line of fire and sabotages the gains built by the lumad in establishing educational facilities, which the government has allegedly failed to provide. The group said the continuous attacks on IP communities reduces Duterte’s pro-Lumad pronouncements when he was Davao City mayor to mere rhetoric.
A report by the SOS Network claimed there have been 168 incidents of military attacks in 47 lumad schools under the Aquino regime’s “Oplan Bayanihan” and the Duterte administration’s “Oplan Kapayapaan”. The report said more than 1,000 families and 5,000 students have been victims of forced evacuation, threat, harassment, intimidation, red-tagging and surveillance.
“The administration should end these attacks and execute its duty to uphold the lumad and every other Filipinos’ right to education,” the EfD said. The group vowed to strengthen and widen its advocacy to help and advance IP alternative schools.
The Lumad hit headlines in September 2015 after suspected members of para-military group Magahat-Bagani Forces killed a school director, a Manobo leader and a tribe elder—all in one morning. The so-called Lianga Massacre led to a one-year displacement of almost 3,000 Lumad in Surigao del Sur.