LUMAD Bakwit School students have decried that a school in Bukidnon built after they were displaced was destroyed again by the military.
On June 5, the 72nd Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army coerced residents, mostly lumad, to demolish the Lumad school facilitated by Mindanao Interfaith Services Foundation Inc. in Barangay Sagundanon, Kitaotao, Bukidnon.
According to lumad students in the Bakwit School, their parents called them a week earlier and said they were being forced by soldiers to participate in the demolition, or else they were to face trumped-up charges and arrest if they failed to cooperate.
Grade 12 student Chricelyn said in the vernacular that they were afraid of their families being guarded by soldiers, and that even if members needed to call, the learners had to hide in fear of their safety.
“This is the second time Chricelyn and her classmates lost their school. In 2015 they were traumatized when soldiers and village officials threatened them to leave their school in White Culaman, also in Kitaotao,” said Save Our Schools Network’s spokesperson Rius Valle. “Their trauma [resurfaced, as their school in Sagundanon was] being torn apart.”
Students said their parents told them that soldiers, who took part in demolishing the school, wore civilian clothes to show that they were “residents.” Several media posts also validated that present in the destruction of the school was 72nd IB Battalion Commander Jose Regonay Jr. wearing civilian clothes.
“This has been the trend among the [Armed Forces of the Philippines, and the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict],” explained Valle. “First, they parade residents and civilians as fake surrenders, force them to destroy the schools they have built, then coerce them to file trumped-up cases against teachers, leaders and human-rights defenders, [just like] what happened…in Cebu and Davao.”
Despite the trauma and fear, the kids vowed to expose the attacks and rights violations even during the pandemic. Chricelyn, along with her schoolmates, were the focus of the 2020 award-winning documentary Bullet-laced Dreams, where she voiced the attacks on their school. The film won the Best Documentary plum at the 2020 Mindanao Film Fest, and had its world premiere at the Global Visions section in 2020’s DMZ International Documentary Film Festival in South Korea. The film also won the Best Pitch award at the Colors of Asia Tokyo Docs International Pitching Forum, and the If/Then Southeast Asia Prize in Bali, Indonesia.
Chricelyn remarked in her native dialect that even if their school was destroyed, they are still students, and that even in the streets, beneath bridges or under the shades of trees, they will still study in the Bakwit school, and that learning and their thirst for knowledge and justice will not be constrained inside classrooms.