News | International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines

Stop attacking indigenous schools, pull out military troops in Mindanao!

ICHRP Secretariat

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September 7, 2015

Stop attacking indigenous schools, pull out military troops in Mindanao!

IBON International statement on the murder of ALCADEV head, indigenous leaders in Surigao del Sur

IBON International strongly denounces the killings of Emerito “Emok” Samarca, executive director of the Alternative Learning Center for Livelihood and Agricultural Development (ALCADEV), Dionel Campos, chairperson of an indigenous peoples organization in his community along with his cousin Bello Sinzo. We express our deepest condolences to their families and loved ones. We find these vile acts of murder beyond inhumane, and representative of the state of terror perpetrated by the same government forces who swore to protect its people.

On the morning of September 1st, Emerito “Emok” Samarca was found dead in the very same classroom he helped build for the Lumad children of Lianga, Surigao del Sur—his throat was slit, stab wounds in his neck and stomach, his hands and feet were tied.

Some three kilometers from the site, Dionel and Bello were strafed dead by elements of Magahat/BAGANI – a paramilitary group armed by and operating under the command of the 36th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army. The executions were witnessed by hundreds of residents, teachers and students of ALCADEV who were forced out of their homes and dormitories by armed militiamen.

ALCADEV is one of the many learning institutions built by the indigenous peoples themselves with the help of NGOs and faith-based groups. In addition to literacy and numeracy learning programs, these indigenous schools offer transformative and culturally relevant education that liberates students and entire communities from decades of oppression and corporate plunder of their ancestral lands. These schools serve the poorest indigenous families who, for the longest time have been deprived of their right to education and basic social services. Military attacks and other cases of harassment have been reported in hundreds of indigenous alternative schools in the region including the Mindanao Interfaith Services Foundation, Inc. (MISFI) campuses that are being supported in part through IBON International’s Adopt-a-School program.

The intensified military operations in Mindanao have left entire Lumad communities with no choice but to evacuate to the cities and leave their ancestral lands behind. Under the Aquino regime, 68 indigenous peoples have been slain. This brings to 279 the total number of documented cases of extrajudicial killings since Aquino’s presidency in 2010.[1]

These attacks are carried out under the auspices of the Aquino administration’s counter-insurgency program – Oplan Bayanihan. The implementation of Executive Order 546 has resulted in the increase of paramilitary groups and private armies under the command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP)[2]. In the same vein, since the adoption of the AFP directive 25 – an order allowing military units to conduct its operations inside schools and hospitals, attacks against indigenous schools have alarmingly increased[3]. Oplan Bayanihan is patterned after the United States Counter-Insurgency Plan (COIN)[4] in its use of civil-military and psywar operations. It serves as a legal instrument to extend the US “War on Terror” in the Philippines. In fact, the AFP has deployed a total of 55 army battalions in the region – 30 in Southern Mindanao, 11 in Caraga and 14 in Western and Northern Mindanao regions – this does not include Special Forces and US army personnel who participate in the so-called “joint military training exercises.”[5] Furthermore, US military aid to the Philippines has reached more than US$500 million since 2001[6].

ALCADEV, MISFI and other alternative indigenous schools bear the Lumad’s aspirations to break free from generations of poverty and the systematic denial of their basic right to education. The rampant militarization of local communities in Mindanao, the continued attacks against schools, and increasing deaths of indigenous leaders have not only disrupted school operations, but have also led to the outright violation of their right to self-determined development.

We call for an immediate halt to these worsening attacks and for the perpetrators to be brought before the bar of justice. We call for the revocation of EO 546 and the dismantling of all paramilitary groups in the country. Finally, we call for an end to the militarization of rural communities and schools with the pullout of government troops.

In service and solidarity with the people of Mindanao, we will carry on in defense of land and life.

END IMPUNITY!
STOP POLITICAL REPRESSION!
JUSTICE FOR DIONEL, BELLO, & EMERITO!
STOP THE KILLINGS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES!
JUNK OPLAN BAYANIHAN!

Recommended Actions:

Conduct awareness-raising activities in your area in coordination with the Save Our Schools (SOS) Network. You can contact them thru saveourschoolsnetworknatl@gmail.com

We also urge our allies, partners, friends and all advocates of human rights to extend financial, material and humanitarian support to the more than 2,000 evacuees currently in Tandag City, Surigao del Sur.

Send letters, emails and/or fax messages calling on the Aquino administration to:

Immediately pull out the 36th, 75th IB-PA and Special Forces from the Lumad communities and dismantle all paramilitary groups including Magahat/BAGANI Force.
Establish an independent body to investigate the killings and human rights violations perpetrated by government and paramilitary troops in the country.
Uphold its duty as signatory to observe and promote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments and norms.
To cease all operations under its counterinsurgency program Oplan Bayanihan.

You may send your communications to:

H.E. Benigno C. Aquino III
President of the Republic of the Philippines
Malacañang Palace, JP Laurel St., San Miguel
Manila Philippines
Voice: (+632) 564 1451to 80
Fax: (+632) 742-1641/ 929-3968
E-mail: op@president.gov.ph
Ret. Lt. Gen. Voltaire T. Gazmin
Secretary, Department of National Defense
Room 301 DND Building, Camp Emilio Aguinaldo,
E. de los Santos Avenue, Quezon City
Voice:+63(2) 911-9281 / 911-0488
Fax:+63(2) 911 6213
Email: osnd@philonline.com
Atty. Leila De Lima
Secretary, Department of Justice, Philippines
Padre Faura St., Manila, Philippines
Direct Line 521-1908
Trunkline 523-84-81 loc.211/214
Fax: (+632) 523-9548
Email: lmdelima@doj.gov.ph, lmdelima.doj@gmail.com, lmdelima.doj2@gmail.com
Hon. Jose Luis Martin Gascon
Chairperson, Commission on Human Rights
SAAC Bldg., UP Complex
Commonwealth Avenue
Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines
Voice: (+632) 928-5655, (+632) 926-6188
Fax: (+632) 929 0102
E-mail: comsec@chr.gov.ph

[1] Latest figures as of September 5, 2015 based on data from Karapatan Alliance for Peoples’ Rights
[2] http://www.gabrielawomensparty.net/content/gabriela-solon-slams-eo-presidential-imprimatur-lumad-killings
[3] http://kabataanpartylist.com/blog/new-deped-afp-memos-allow-military-presence-in-schools/
[4] http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/119629.pdf
[5] http://bicoltoday.com/2014/11/20/mindanao-is-big-military-garrison-of-55-combat-battalions-and-growing/
[6] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/azadeh-shahshahani/us-aid-and-human-rights-v_b_4815877.html

Attacks on Mindanao Lumad schools and communities intensify as Aquino’s military goes berserk for Oplan Bayanihan

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September 4, 2015

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Attacks on Mindanao Lumad schools and communities intensify as Aquino’s military goes berserk for Oplan Bayanihan

September 4, 2015

The last year of the Benigno S. Aquino presidency has meant a bloodbath for indigenous peoples and for Lumad education, two months after his State of the Nation Address where he gloated of figures that have purportedly addressed classroom shortages and increased the quality of Philippine education.

Emerito ‘Tatay Emok’ Samarca, executive director of the Alternative Learning Center for Agriculture and Development, Inc. (ALCADEV) and a convenor of the Save Our Schools Network was killed by government-backed indigenous paramilitary forces. His body was found lying in a pool of blood, with stab wounds on his neck, and his throat slit. While Dionel Campos, chairperson of MAPASU (Persevering Struggle for Future Manobo Generations), and his cousin Aurelio “Bello” Sinzo, were strafed dead before the terrified community of Han-ayan, Lianga town, Surigao del Sur province.

The paramilitary group Magahat/Bagani – armed, controlled, and commanded by the 36th Infantry Battalion, Philippine Army – burned down the school cooperative building and threatened to massacre the entire community if they would not leave the area two days before the killing of the Samarca, Campos, and Sinzo in the morning of September 1, 2015.

The dastardly crime which was perpetrated at dawn and later carried out in broad daylight, terrified the erstwhile peaceful Manobo school and community. As of this writing, the number of evacuees in Caraga has swelled to 3,000 individuals or more than 500 families coming from the municipalities of San Miguel and Lianga, with some 70 families still lost in nearby forests.

The Philippine military’s attack on ALCADEV using indigenous paramilitaries is by far the gravest and most vicious violation of indigenous peoples’ right to education and constitutes a wholesale violation of children’s rights.

Moreover, as schools are an integral part of communities, the attack is an open declaration of the Philippine state’s war of annihilation against people’s organizations and communities resisting foreign large-scale plunder of ancestral domains.

The 36th IB Philippine Army-Magahat/Bagani rampage at the ALCADEV School shows that the Aquino government has dropped all pretenses of adhering to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international human rights instruments. It also demonstrates the irrefutable crimes of the Philippine Army against indigenous children which the UN Special Representative of the Secretary General on Children and the Armed Conflict has continually glossed over, understated, or consistently concealed in its annual reports.

The Philippine government’s attacks on the ALCADEV School clearly shows its contempt towards self-determined development asserted by indigenous communities. Alternative Lumad schools are pushing for their own culturally-relevant pedagogy that liberates indigenous peoples from the yoke of institutionalized discrimination and corporate plunder of ancestral lands.

These Ethnocidal attacks on indigenous education, indigenous leaders and their staunch advocates and supporters are but the latest in a string of Aquino’s orders to tighten the noose on Lumad schools:

1. Since April of 2014 up to present, 25 Lumad schools and community schools were forced to halt operations for the entire month of June due to harassment by the AFP and sanctioned by the Department of Education (DepEd).

2. At least 84 cases of attacks on 57 community schools have displaced and disrupted the education of over 3, 000 Lumad children.

3. Two (2) minors were brutally killed by the elements of 3rd Company of the1st Special Forces Battalion under the ground commander Capt. Balatbat with Col. Nasser Lidasan as Battalion Commander on August 19, 2015 in Pangatukan town, Bukidnon province. They were part of 5 Manobo tribals strafed and killed on suspicion of being NPA combatants.

4. The schooling of Lumad children under the Tribal Filipino Program of Surigao del Sur was disrupted when residents of Brgy. Siagao, San Miguel, Surigao del Sur were displaced. Brothers Ely and Crisanto Tabugol, residents of the said community, were killed by an armed group led by Hasmin and elements of the 36th IBPA.

5. A Lumad child was among 14 farmers in White Culaman, Kitaotao, Bukidnon who were illegally detained and arrested by elements of 8th IB ug 23rd IB headed by Nicolas Rivera and an official named Tocmo. All were accused as members of the New People’s Army in contrast to the fact that they are members of organizations Nagkahiusang Mag-uuma sa Barangay White Culaman ( NAMABAW) and Tinananon Kulamanon Lumadnong Panaghiusa sa Arakan (TIKULPA). The Army threatened to burn down the MISFI-run (Mindanao Interfaith Services Foundation Incorporated) school which offers 7th and 8th grade education in Sitio Dao, Bukidnon.

6. Adding to these abuses is the ongoing mass evacuation of the Talaingod Manobo people in Davao City since April of this year due to intensified military operations and threats from the terrorist paramilitary group ALAMARA. Around 1, 000 individuals from San Fernando Bukidnon, Kapalong and Talaingod, Davao del Norte have sought sanctuary at UCCP Haran, Davao City. Learners from Salugpungan Ta Tanu Igkanugon Community Learning Center Inc (STTILCI) in Talaingod have been holding their classes at the refugee camp since the evacuation started. Worse, three soldiers of the 1003rd Infantry Brigade raped a 14-year old Manobo grade 4 student of the Butay elementary school while conducting military operations in the area.

7. Last month, the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines-Northern Mindanao schools in Agusan del Sur and Bukidnon have earlier reported harassments and threats from suspected state forces in the form of anonymous text messages, private message via facebook, and surveillances. In March 18, 2014, an RMP-NMR school grounds in Binikalan, San Luis, Agusan del Sur was strafed by 26th IB troops disrupting the graduation practice of the school. In Sarangani province, administrators and faculty of the Center for Lumad Advocacy and Services (CLANS) which provides education to indigenous Blaan children have been filed with false criminal charges of serious illegal detention of evacuees and inciting to sedition.

The Aquino government should be held accountable for all these violations. It is responsible for the formation and arming of the paramilitary groups, the paving the way for the entry of large-scale destructive projects in the ancestral domains, the sowing of disunity among IPs, and the killings that have claimed the lives of many.
The Save Our Schools Network demands Justice for Samarca, Campos, Sinzo and all victims of human rights abuses! End all forms of attacks on schools and communities!

Reference:
Prof. Mae Fe Templa, MSW
Convenor, Save Our Schools Network
+639256682458

Militiamen kill tribal school head, indigenous leader; residents evacuate

ICHRP Secretariat

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September 1, 2015

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Militiamen kill tribal school head, indigenous leader; residents evacuate

Urgent Alert

Worst in a series of recent attacks on indigenous people in Mindanao, militiamen reportedly murdered the head of a tribal school, the chairman of a Lumad organization and one other person in Lianga town, Surigao del Sur early Tuesday morning – September 1, 2015.

Josephine Pagalan, spokesperson of the Kahugpungan sa mga Lumad-Caraga or KASALO, a regional federation of indigenous people’s organizations, said that Jionel Campos, chairman of the Malahutayong Pakigbisog Alang Sa Sumusunod or MAPASU, and his cousin Aurelio Sinzo, were executed at KM16, Han-ayan, Barangay Diatagon in front of hundreds of residents of at least six sitios who had been ordered out of their homes by gunmen of the Magahat/BAGANI Force militia around 4 a.m.

The executions were also witnessed by teachers and students of the Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development or ALCADEV, who had been roused from their dormitories at the school and ordered to join the residents at KM16.

When the militia withdrew after killing the two, the teachers and students returned to the ALCADEV compound to find the school’s executive director, Emerito Samarca, who had been ordered to stay behind, dead in a room, his throat slit and stabbed in the stomach, his hands and feet bound with rope.

The school had just celebrated its 11th founding anniversary. Samarca had also attended the International People’s Conference on Mining held in Metro Manila from July 30 to August 1.

Pagalan, who made to report the incident at the Lianga police station said that troops of the Army’s 36th Infantry Battalion and Special Forces Regiment had arrived in Diatagon on August 30, occupying their villages and the school. The Magahat, she said, followed early Tuesday morning and immediately “kicked the doors of houses, ordering the people out and telling them to gather at KM16.” Pagalan said she herself had been staying with a daughter at KM16 who had just given birth.

When the residents had gathered there, she said, the militiamen “ordered us to stop supporting the NPA (New People’s Army) if we did not want to die.”

Campos was then ordered to sit down outside her daughter’s store where “he was shot in the head,” followed by Sinzo. “Silang tanan nagpaputok (They all fired their guns),” Pagalan said.

She said the Magahat then “warned us to leave our place within two days or we would be killed when they returned” before withdrawing.

Pagalan said the residents of Diatagon have agreed to flee and head to the provincial capital, Tandag City, to seek help from the government.

This would be the second mass evacuation of residents from the lumad communities of Diatagon since last October when some 1,800 indigenous Manobo fled their homes after the murder of MAPASU council member Henry Sarsona Alameda, who was executed in front of his family by soldiers and militiamen, and Aldren Dumaguit, also MAPASU member. Interaksyon.com

DEMAND JUSTICE NOW!

EXPRESS YOUR CONCERN to the Philippine Government by writing to:

H.E. Benigno S. Aquino III
President of the Republic of the Philippines
Malacañang Palace
JP Laurel Sr. San Miguel
Fax: (+632) 742-1641 / 929-3968
E-mail: corres@op.gov.ph / opnet@ops.gov.ph

Hon. Leila M. de Lima
Secretary, Department of Justice
DOJ Main Building, Padre Faura Street, Manila
Tel: 523-8481 (loc. 211/214 ), 521-1908
Fax: 524-5936
Email: info@doj.gov.ph

Ret. Lt. Gen. Voltaire T. Gazmin
Secretary, Department of National Defense
Room 301 DND Building, Camp Emilio Aguinaldo,
E. de los Santos Avenue, Quezon City
Voice:+63(2) 911-6193, Fax:+63(2) 911-6213

Hon. Jose Luis Martin Gascon
Chairperson, Commission On Human Rights
SAAC Building, Commonwealth Avenue
UP Complex, Diliman, Quezon City
928-5655, 926-6188
Telefax: 929-0102

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III
Chair, Justice and Human Rights Committee
Philippine Senate
Rm. 512 GSIS Bldg., Financial Center, Roxas Blvd., Pasay City
Trunk Lines: (632) 552-6601 to 70 loc. 5548
Direct Lines: (632) 822-9758
Fax No.: (632) 822-9759
Email: kokopimenteloffice@yahoo.com

Rep. Guillermo Romarate Jr.
Chair, Human Rights Committee
House of Representatives
Quezon City
Rm. RVM-426
Phone: (632) 931-5001; local 7051, 9518974

Leonor T. Oralde-Quintayo
Chair, National Commission on Indigenous Peoples
2/F N. dela Merced Bldg. corner West & Quezon Ave., Quezon City
Tel.: 373-9942

EXPRESS YOUR SOLIDARITY!

Write support letters to

MAPASU
KASALO Caraga
kasalo_caraga@yahoo.com
Copy furnish your letters to barugkatungod.mindanao@gmail.com

BARUG KATUNGOD MINDANAO (Mindanao, Stand for Human Rights!) is a broad island-wide human rights network of lawyers, churchpeople, academics, artists, youth and students, women, child rights advocates, Lumad rights workers, Moro human rights workers, health professionals, journalists, and other human rights workers and defenders. It aims to serve as a human rights campaign center in Mindanao by drawing up island-wide statistics and analysis of human rights trends and issues; provide capacity-building trainings to human rights workers and human rights defenders in the regions; and strengthen human rights advocacy and mobilizations at Mindanao, national, and international levels.

Lead Convenors:

Initiatives for Peace in Mindanao (INPEACE Mindanao) • Kusog sa Katawhang Lumad sa Mindanao (KALUMARAN Alliance of Indigenous Peoples in Mindanao) • Kawagib Alliance for the Advancement of Moro Human Rights • Union of Peoples’ Lawyers in Mindanao (UPLM) • Sisters’ Association in Mindanao (SAMIN) • Community-Based Health Services Association-Mindanao (CBHSA) • Resource Center for People’s Advocacies in Southern Mindanao • Karapatan Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights

Karapatan outraged by killing of Lumad school exec and leaders in Surigao del Sur

ICHRP Secretariat

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September 1, 2015

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Karapatan outraged by killing of Lumad school exec and leaders in Surigao del Sur

“This is reminiscent of the Arroyo’s war against the Filipino people, at a time when it was reeling from its isolation from the people and at the same time in a scurry to beat the deadline of its counterinsurgency program. Killings continue to go up,” Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay said upon receiving initial report on the killing of three persons in Surigao del Sur this morning, September 1.

“And, just like the Arroyo administration, BS Aquino is expected to cover up these crimes and avoid this issue like it has not happened at all,” Palabay said.

“We call on all peace-loving Filipinos and the international community to press for the immediate dismantling of paramilitary groups involved in this dirty war against the Filipino people. We also demand the immediate pull out of the 36th Infantry Battalion in Lumad communities in Lianga, Surigao del Sur,” Palabay said.

Emerito Samarca, executive director of Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development (ALCADEV), a self-initiated school for the Lumad, was found dead on September 1 with a stab wound inside one of the classrooms in the school compound in Han-ayan, Lianga, Surigao del Sur.

Also killed in Km. 16, some three kilometres from Han-ayan, were Dionel Campos, chairperson of Malahutayong Pakigbisog Alang sa Sumusunod (MAPASU) and his cousin, Bello Sinzo. The two were shot by members of the Magahat/Bagani force in the presence of their community members in Km. 16.

Two days prior to the killing, the Magahat/Bagani Force and elements of the 36th IB encamped at the Alcadev school compound and occupied the function hall and parts of the school grounds. During the encampment, the Magahat group threatened the school’s faculty members, staffs and community members that they will massacre the community if the people will not leave in two days.

August 31, the MAGAHAT group burned down the community cooperative store of MAPASU while indiscriminately firing around the community. Samarca, according to initial report was held and detained by some armed members of Magahat before he was killed. He was last seen tied around the neck, his hands and feet were also tied. He was brought to one of the classrooms.

On the evening of August 31, the Alcadev faculty and most of the residents in Han-ayan went to Km. 16 for safety. At around 4 a.m., Magahat Forces went from house to house in Km. 16 and ordered the residents to get out of their houses and go to the center of the community. That was when Campos and Sinzo were met by a volley of gunfire from brothers Loloy and Bobby Tejero of the Magahat/Bagani Force.

Magahat members also confiscated all cellphones and cameras from the residents and ALCADEV staff and remaining visitors in the community.

As of this writing, the residents of Han-ayan, with the remains of Samarca, Campos and Sinzo are on their way to Tandag, Surigao del Sur.

“The Bagani paramilitary and the 36th IB has long been accusing self-help Lumad school ALCADEV as NPA school, killings the teachers and organizers in the community, consequently depriving the Lumad of their education,” Palabay said.

Magahat group was also involved in the killing of brothers Crisanto and Ely Tagobol on August 28 on Brgy. Siagao, San Miguel, Agusan del Sur.

“With so much blood in the hands of BS Aquino, the regime cannot simply wash away its stench. The mounting call for justice for those killed will not be silenced,” Palabay said. “BS Aquino and the AFP’s attempt to cover up does not work. More Filipinos will hold them accountable for their blood debts,” Palabay said.

Reference:
Cristina “Tinay” Palabay
Secretary General
+63917-3162831

Angge Santos
Media Liaison
+63918-9790580

http://www.karapatan.org/Karapatan+outraged+by+the+killing+of+Lumad+school+exec+and+leaders+in+Surigao+del+Sur

———————————————————————
PUBLIC INFORMATION DESK
publicinfo@karapatan.org
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Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights
2nd Flr. Erythrina Building
#1 Maaralin corner Matatag Streets
Central District, Diliman
Quezon City, PHILIPPINES 1101
Telefax: (+63 2) 4354146
Web: http://www.karapatan.org

KARAPATAN is an alliance of human rights organizations and programs, human rights desks and committees of people’s organizations, and individual advocates committed to the defense and promotion of people’s rights and civil liberties. It monitors and documents cases of human rights violations, assists and defends victims and conducts education, training and campaign.

Militiamen kill tribal school head, indigenous leader; residents evacuate

ICHRP Secretariat

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September 1, 2015

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Barug Katungod Mindanao