The paramilitary versus the Lumad: A history of state-sponsored oppression

On the term paramilitary, the US Defense Department defines it as “forces or groups distinct from the regular armed forces of any country, but resembling them in organization, equipment, training or mission” (US Defense Department, 2010). There are different types of militia groups in the Philippines and they are classified according to the involvement of the central government and the military. “CAFGUs for instance, are embedded in the military hierarchy. CVOs are an unarmed component of the local defense organization but when used as police force multipliers, the CVOs are being armed. The paramilitary groups (sometimes referred to as vigilante groups) are also employed by the government for counter-insurgency work against separatist and communist armed groups” (Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, 2011).

Over several decades, the paramilitary groups in Mindanao have carried out torture, murder, extrajudicial killings, rape, looting of property, forced disappearances, and arson (Human Rights Watch, 2015; Karapatan, 2015; RMP-NMR, 2017). Yet a complete picture of atrocities remains elusive as many abuses go unreported as victims fear retaliation. In the second year of the AFP’s ‘Oplan Bayanihan’, there were 45 extrajudicial killings (EJKs), bringing the death toll to 129 under Aquino administration (RMP-NMR, 2016). Several attacks were directed at Lumad communities and their leaders who took a stand against the entry of large and destructive corporate entities with logging, mining, plantation, and energy interests in their ancestral domains. In a report by the Higala sa Lumad network, 7 out of 37 victims of EJKs are Lumad datus (RMP-NMR, 2016).

Lumad children suffer hardships during evacuations and demolitions, when they are driven from their homes (Vaishnav, 2017). In 2011 alone, 12 children were victims of extrajudicial killings, and at least 3, of frustrated killings—due to indiscriminate firing by soldiers, slay try on an adult companion, or at a violent demolition. Several children were also arrested during violent demolitions or accosted during military operations. At least four children and youths were tagged as “NPA child rebels,” while one was charged with violation to the Human Security. The same Lumad communities are forcibly evacuated in the countryside, as they sought shelter, either from bombings and aerial strikes, or from combat-geared “peace and development teams” and military-sanctioned paramilitary units that swoop down on their communities (Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, 2011). Lumad schools, a target of violent rhetoric and red-tagging by President Duterte who calls these as training ground for NPAs, have also been bombed by both state military and paramilitary groups. That is on top of the murder of Emerito Samarca, executive director of ALCADEV, who was found lifeless in one of the classrooms, hogtied with his throat slit in 2015.

During the Aquino regime, the Philippines was also put to task at the Universal Periodic Review of the United Nations Human Rights Council, where at least 22 out of 69 countries called attention to the continuing cases of documented extrajudicial killings, disappearances and torture. Several countries called for the prosecution of former military officials and the dismantling of paramilitary groups. Some urged the Philippine government to act on the requests of UN Special Rapporteurs to visit the country, to which the government gave a tentative response, lamely citing lack of funds (Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, 2011).

The perpetrators are identified military units, paramilitary groups formed by or closely linked to the military, and suspected death squads under the AFP’s command. Death squads—motorcycle-riding armed men, whether masked or barefaced—are still being employed to eliminate progressive personalities and suspected rebel supporters (Spear, 2015). Cases of Aquino’s executive order 79 served as marching orders to the Investment Defense Forces—the AFP, the CAFGU, and the paramilitary groups that are accredited as Special Civilian Armed Auxilliary (SCAA)—to clear the mining areas, and remove hindrances such as a resistant populace. In several instances, the military even tried to cover up by claiming that the civilian victims were NPA rebels killed in an encounter with soldiers.

The Murder of Lumad Datus

Over the years, Lumad leaders were recorded to have been killed by members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and other state agents as a response to the unified campaign of Lumad communities against government atrocities.

On March 5, 2012, Jimmy Liguyon, 37, leader of the Matigsalog tribe and village chair of Dao, San Fernando, Bukidnon was shot in front of his house by Alde ‘Butchoy’ Salusad, leader of NIPAR (New Indigenous Peoples’ Army), a paramilitary group. Salusad, accompanied by his men, even declared that he killed Jimmy because he refused to sign a certification for SANMATRIDA, or the San Fernando Matigsalog, Tigwahanon, and Manobo Tribal Datu Association. NIPAR had been terrorizing residents in barangays Dao and Calagangan since the previous year. On August 16, Alde along with soldiers of the 8th IB and the CAFGU, set up four gold processing plants known locally as ‘Bolmellan’. They also cut indigenous trees as materials in constructing tunnels for their mining operation. Prior to that, on August 2, Alde’s father Benjamin ‘Nonong’ Salusad, a CAFGU member, came with 20 of his men and ransacked the tents of Matisalog gold panners in sitio Kiranggol, Dao, looking for gold dust and money. The gold panners returned home sitio Malungon, Calagangan village, but Benjamin Salusad also threatened to kill Datu Malapong Nayan, the tribal chief of the Matisalog in Calagangan, and municipal chair the Lumad group KASILO, which the gold panners belong to (Environmental Justice Atlas, 2012).

Alde Salusad and the NIPAR men had also accosted other residents, taking gold dust and money at gunpoint. They touted their guns around the residents, and even fired shots at children. This has pushed 62 families to leave their villages in late August that year. Some residents went to nearby communities, while others trekked to as far as Quezon, the next town. Those who had no relatives elsewhere went and hid in the forest (Albasin, n.d.). On August 29, the evacuees travelled from Quezon, Bukidnon to the provincial capitol in Malaybalay City where they stayed for a few months only to return again in the next years.

Another tribal leader, Margarito Cabal of Kibawe was shot three times in the chest and once in the back, and was dead on arrival at the hospital. He was known for his firm resistance against the establishment of Hydro-Electric Mega Dam – Pulangui V project of the First Bukidnon Electric Cooperative (FIBECO) which have eventually affected 22 barangays of Bukidnon and North Cotabato (Lopez, 2012). Ten barangays of Kibawe have been affected, including his home in Barangay Tumaras. He campaigned and organized residents of the affected barangays to oppose the construction of the said dam.

On the same year, several Lumad villages in Agusan del Sur refused to attend an assembly where an agreement that would allow entry of the plantation companies would be signed. The assembly was initiated by Ben Hur Mansulonay, a leader of an indigenous paramilitary group controlled by the AFP in San Luis. Since then, the community’s datu were under threat. Datus Lauron and Lapatis also actively campaigned against the entry of large-scale mining companies in Valencia, Bukidnon. Datu Lapatis also reported several incidents of harassments from NIPAR and the 8th IBPA (RMP-NMR, 2016).

In December 2014, village captain and traditional leader Datu Necasio ‘Angis’ Precioso, Sr. was killed by suspected members of a paramilitary group working with the 26th IBPA in San Luis, Agusan del Sur. Prior to his death, Datu Angis had been in an argument with M/Sgt. Andres Villaganas after the military called for members of the Banwaon community for interrogation. During the interrogation, Villaganas accused them of supporting the New People’s Army. In 2015, Manobo children and their families of Lianga, Surigao del Sur were forcibly taken out of their homes on September 1 by paramilitary group Bagani to witness the point-blank execution of tribal leader Dionel Campos and his cousin Aurelio Sinzo. Same perpetrators also bound Emerito Samarca or Tay Emok, ALCADEV’s executive director, by the neck and limbs in the faculty room, then stabbed him in the chest and slit his throat open (Capistrano, 2016).

In September 2016, gunmen who are suspected to be part of paramilitary group Alamara killed three tribal leaders in Lianga, Surigao del Sur (Velez, n.d.). The same group was implicated in numerous attacks during the same year, including nine killings in Cabanglasan, Bukidnon.

Paramilitary versus Lumad: Global Patterns

Colombia. The Katio and Chami peoples committed mass suicide between 2003 and 2004. The suicides took place at a time of extreme change, during which mining and logging companies depleted the jungles of animals that the indigenous peoples once hunted, forcing the once-nomadic Embera to form permanent communities. In this particular discussion of large-scale development projects, there was also reference to the impact of large dam projects upon indigenous communities in Colombia (Saab & Taylor, 2008). Unfortunately, in this case, the human rights violations became so grave as to include forcible removal from homes and lands, destruction of property as well as assassinations and disappearances carried out by paramilitary forces (UNPFII, 2009).

Myanmar. Testimony of abuses by State-controlled military or paramilitary forces has also been repeatedly given. According to information received by the Special Rapporteur on the human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people, members of the village of Tagu Seik, near Einme, were tortured and their community ransacked on the basis of purported communications with another armed opposition group (Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, 2011).

Kenya, Guatemala, and Mexico. The general pattern that holds for indigenous women worldwide is their vulnerability to sexual violence. In areas of conflict, indigenous women often fall victims to abuse by members of the military and are subject to sexual enslavement, forced pregnancy, gang-rapes, sexual mutilation and killing. Historically, violence against women was used as a weapon in colonial conquests of indigenous lands, but as recently as the 1980s and 1990s, 1,400 indigenous Samburu women of Kenya were raped by British soldiers stationed on their lands. In the 1980s, indigenous women were targeted for rape as a weapon of war in Guatemala. In the 1990s, indigenous women in Chiapas, Mexico were subject to compulsory servitude in paramilitary camps (UNFPII, 2009).

The rest of Latin America. In 2003, more than 100 indigenous peoples and leaders were murdered and the indigenous community in Sierra Nevada de Santa Maria was forcibly displaced. In the last 15 years, as political violence has escalated, more than 2,660 cases of human rights violations have been reported. Reports confirm that indigenous peoples have been the victims of several massacres perpetrated by paramilitaries, the guerrillas and other armed groups. State-sponsored military activities have included aerial bombing of rural and indigenous communities. Thousands of indigenous peoples have been displaced, resulting in increasing populations of refugees in the neighbouring countries of Brazil, Ecuador, Panama, Peru and Venezuela. Refugees have also fled to urban areas within Colombia where malnutrition and deaths due to hunger have been reported. Throughout the country, forced disappearances of indigenous leaders and representatives have been documented, as have reports of mass arbitrary detentions carried out by the military (UNPFII, 2009). #

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SOURCES-

1. Albasin, G.C. n.d. Flashback Wednesday: Alde Salusad’s Victims. Cagayan de Oro, Philippines: Mindanao Interfaith Institute on Lumad Studies. Retrieved from http://www.miils.org/type/reports/flashback-wednesday-alde-salusad%E2%80%99s-victims
2. Capistrano, Z.I.M.C. 27 January 2016. “Paramilitary Groups to Lumad schools: ‘all teachers, students will be massacred.’ Davao Today. Retrieved from http://davaotoday.com/main/human-rights/paramilitary-group-to-lumad-schools-all-teachers-students-will-be-massacred
3. Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue. July 2011. Armed Violence in Mindanao: Militia and Private Armies. Geneva, Switzerland: Author.
4. Chambers, P. 2012. “A Precarious Path: The Evolution of Civil-Military Relations in the Philippines.” Asian Security 8 (2): 138-163. Retrieved from https://library.xu.edu.ph, doi.org/10.1080/14799855.2012.686254
5. Defense Department – United States of America. 2010. Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from https://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jp1_02.pdf.
6. Environmental Justice Atlas. 2012. “Illegal Gold Mining and Killing of Anti-Mining Indigenous Leader Jimmy Liguyon, Mindanao, Philippines.” EnvironmentalJusticeAtlas.org. Retrieved from https://ejatlas.org/conflict/illegal-gold-mining-and-killing-of-anti-mining-indigenous-leader-jimmy-liguyon-mindano-philippines
7. Karapatan. 2014. Karapatan Year-End Report on the Human Rights Situation in the Philippines. Quezon City, Philippines: Author.
8. Human Rights Watch. 23 September 2015. Philippines: Paramilitaries Attack Tribal Villages, Schools. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/09/23/philippines-paramilitaries-attack-tribal-villages-schools
9. Lopez, A.D. 21 May 2012. “Stopping a Hydroelectric Dam.” Davao Today. Retrieved from http://davaotoday.com/main/politics/stopping-a-hydroelectric-dam
10. RMP-NMR. 2016. Peoples’ Rights in the Peripherals: Lumad Rights in the Last 18 Months of President Aquino III.Iligan City, Philippines: Rural Missionaries of the Philippines-Northern Mindanao Region. Retrieved from https://www.rmp-nmr.org.
11. RMP-NMR. 2017. State of Unchange: Lumad Rights a Year into the Duterte Administration. Iligan City, Philippines: Rural Missionaries of the Philippines-Northern Mindanao Region. Retrieved from https://www.rmp-nmr.org.
12. Saab, B.Y. & A.W. Taylor. 2012. “Criminality and Armed Groups: A Comparative Study of FARC and Paramilitary Groups in Colombia.” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 32 (6): 455-475. Retrieved from https://library.xu.edu.ph, https://doi.org/10.1080/10576100902892570
13. Spear, L. 15 September 2015. “A ‘Civil War’ Is Being Waged Against Indigenous Tribes in the Southern Philippines, Rights Group Says.” Time. Retrieved from http://time.com/4028811/philippines-lumad-mindanao-indigenous-military-war-killings
14. UN Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. 2009. State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. New York, NY: Author.
15. Vaishnav, P. 2017. “Child Protection and UNICEF’s Communication and Media Strategy: A Conflict-related Study from Mindanao, Philippines.” In Andersen, R. & P.L. de Silva (editors), Routledge Companion to Media and Humanitarian Action. London, UK: Routledge.
16. Velez, T. n.d. “Alamara, the Paramilitary Gripping Davao’s Lumad Communities.” Cagayan de Oro, Philippines: Mindanao Interfaith Institute on Lumad Studies. Retrieved from http://www.miils.org/type/reports/alamara-paramilitary-gripping-davaos-lumad-communities.

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This article was originally published by the Mindanao Interfaith Institute on Lumad Studies, a part of the Healing the Hurt Project of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines-Northern Mindanao Region. This project is supported by the European Union.

Views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the RMP-NMR Inc and the “Healing the Hurt” Project partners and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union.

Meet the four anti-lumad, pro-mining corporations military generals

Group says US should cut military aid to PH, citing rise of 4 generals despite rights abuses
By Tricia Aquino
June 26, 2015
InterAksyon.com

MANILA, Philippines -- In March last year, members of the Manobo tribe in Davao del Norte were reportedly threatened and interrogated by troops of the 60th Infantry Battalion and 4th Special Forces of the Army’s 10th Infantry Division, who also destroyed their rice fields and stole their chickens.

Later that month, aerial bombing sent more than 300 tribal families fleeing their community to seek refuge in Davao City.

Human rights groups believe the Manobos’ resistance to large-scale mining operations in their ancestral lands triggered the militarization, accusing the Armed Forces of the Philippines, particularly the Eastern Mindanao Command, of protecting the interests of expanding large-scale agricultural projects and mining projects.

Current EastMinCom chief, Lieutenant General Aurelio Baladad, who was promoted by President Benigno Aquino III in August last year, commanded the 10th ID at the time, his troops accused of using a school and a church as their camp, and ransacking the home of community leader Mario Liban and confiscating his crops.

Later, the soldiers allegedly destroyed the crops of other farmers, harassed tribal chief Datu Herminio Suminggil, and imposed a 20-hour curfew, preventing farmers from tending to their crops. They also supposedly arrested a couple and forced them to admit that they were involved in the capture of a colonel by the New People’s Army.

Days later, the soldiers allegedly returned, lined up the villagers, and threatened to kill them in retaliation for an NPA ambush on their comrades. The soldiers also forced children to guide them on an operation.

These and similar abuses committed by Eastmincom troops have remained unpunished even as Baladad and three other senior officers who command or have led them have seen their stars continue to soar, are documented in a report, “The Path to Promotion in the Armed Forces Philippines: Vilification Campaigns, Human Rights Abuses, and Impunity,” by the US-based Ecumenical Advocacy Network on the Philippines.

The EANP bills itself as “a national ecumenical network of individuals, organizations, and groups, advocating restrictions to military aid appropriations to the Philippine government until there is compliance with national and international standards of human rights.”

And it argues that its report contains enough bases for the US to put the squeeze on the Philippines to respect human rights by cutting foreign military funding to the AFP as it did in 2008 in response to escalating extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and torture under then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The EANP cites Section 7043 of the US’ 113th Congress Public Law 235, or the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015, which mandates that funds appropriated under the FMF “should only be made available” if the Secretary of State certifies and reports to the Committees on Appropriations that the Philippine government has complied with the following:

1. Investigating and prosecuting army personnel who were credibly alleged to have committed, aided, or abetted extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, and other human rights violations.
2. Strengthening government institutions working to eliminate such crimes.
3. Implementing a policy of promoting army personnel who demonstrated professionalism and respect for human rights.
4. Ensuring that the AFP and paramilitary groups under its control were not engaging in acts of intimidation or violence against journalists or human rights defenders.

The group says the State Department has not yet certified the AFP’s compliance with these conditions.

In fact, it noted, the four generals cited in its report had been promoted “very rapidly” over the past five years, with an average of only one and a half years before rising to the next rank, despite the abuses committed by troops under their command.

“Each has risen to leadership through service in units responsible for a campaign of extrajudicial killings, disappearances, and illegal detentions,” the EANP said.

The generals cited by the EANP are:

Major General Jorge Segovia

Major General Jorge Segovia headed EastMinCom early last year until his retirement in July. During his stint, said EANP, more than 10,000 people from 50 communities in four provinces were displaced.

Back then, he and his division commanders, Ricardo Visaya of the 4th ID and Baladad of the 10th, mounted operations targeting certain barangays accused of supporting the New People’s Army, with soldiers and auxiliary militias placing communities under military control and turning schools, barangay halls and other community centers into encampments.

The soldiers conducted a detailed household census and imposed curfews, allowing farmers only four hours to tend their crops and otherwise limiting civilian movement.

Community leaders became victims of extrajudicial killings, disappearances, and public vilification.

Segovia began his EastMincom stint at the helm of the 10th ID from 2010 to 2012.

But before this, he had already been implicated in rights abuses as commander of the 2nd ID in Tanay, which was responsible for the capture of the “Morong 43,” health workers nabbed in a raid on a farmhouse in Rizal province in February 2010 in circumstances that the Commission on Human Rights very recently, if very belatedly, violated their human rights.

Months after their arrest and alleged torture, a court ordered the health workers released an all charges against them dropped.

The AFP has not disputed the CHR’s findings but insists the Morong 43 were communist rebels undergoing explosives training when they were captured.

Major General Ricardo Visaya

President Aquino promoted Visaya to head the Southern Luzon Command in September last year.

Before this, he commanded the 4th ID from April 2013 to September 2014.

Units under Visaya’s command were accused of using harsh and illegal tactics against local communities accused of supporting the NPA, EANP said.

In August last year, Manobo tribal leader Datu Roger Alaki was allegedly killed by a member of a tribal militia allegedly organized by the 73rd Infantry Battalion in Agusan del Sur. EANP cited the Kalumbay Regional Lumad Organization as saying residents reported being targets of a vilification campaign conducted by the tribal militia, including threatening to attack them if they refused sign an agreement granting access to a mining company to operate in their community. This drove 30 families from their homes.

The same month, Higaonon leader Marcel Singaman Lambon was killed by a member of a militia unit in Bukidnon. He had been campaigning to end the expansion of an oil palm plantation into his community. Before his murder, soldiers would often visit him and publicly vilify him as an NPA supporter, the EANP said.

Incidentally, Visaya formerly commanded the 69th IB under then 7th ID commander Jovito Palparan. Now retired, Palparan is facing trial for the abduction and disappearance of University of the Philippipnes students Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeno on June 26, 2006, who were reportedly snatched by troops of the 69th IB. The unit was also implicated in the abduction of brothers Raymond and Reynaldo Manalo, who later escaped. Raymond Manalo is one of the key witnesses against Palparan, who activists call “The Butcher” for the string of human rights abuses in areas where he was assigned as military commander.

From February to September 2007, when Visaya was promoted to head the 7th ID’s civil military operations in Metro Manila, soldiers were stationed to barangays in the metropolis and were accused of conducting surveillance, intimidating civilians and actively campaigning against progressive political parties, EANP said.

Lieutenant General Aurelio Baladad

After his stint as 10th ID commander, Baladad was promoted by Aquino to head EastMinCom in August last year. Incidentally, he used to command the 202nd Infantry Brigade of the 2nd ID and was among the officers accused of the illegal arrest and torture of the Morong 43.

Despite this, he was promoted to brigadier general and named AFP deputy chief of staff for operations.

In July 2013, he was promoted to major general and commanded the 3rd ID in Capiz until he received his third star in 2014.

Major General Eduardo Año

In September last year, Major General Eduardo Año was named commander of the 10th ID, which operates in the Davao provinces and Compostela Valley, an area of operations with a long history of human rights abuses, the EANP said.

Troops of the 71st IB under the 10th ID have been tagged in the killing of peasant leader Luis Carbajosa in April this year. Human rights groups reported that Carbajosa, who had organized land reform beneficiaries and actively opposed the incursion of big banana plantations, was on an AFP “hit list” prior to his murder.

In 2007, Año was accused of commanding soldiers who abducted activist Jonas Burgos, son of press freedom icon Jose Burgos Jr. Jonas has not been found since.

The Burgos family filed a criminal complaint against Año and vainly attempted to block his promotion. The Department of Justice dropped the case for lack of evidence.

Chronology of human rights violations committed by the 68th IBPA against Salugpungan communities

CHRONOLOGY OF HRV's Committed by the 68th IBPA against Communities under the Salugpungan Ta Tanu Igkanugon (2nd Quarter, 2015)

March 2-3, 2015

30 elements from the 68th IBPA went to Sitio Km.31 in Brgy. Dagohoy. They encamped in the tribal hall and health center.

On the same date, Alamara elements went to Sitio Dulyan, Brgy. Palma Gil. They searched for Benito Bay-ao, a member of the Salugpungan. Bay-ao was not in his residence during that time. Instead his sister, Lorena Mandacawan, was the one the Alamara met. They threatened Lorena that the forces of the 68th IBPA would arrest Bay-ao if they saw him.

March 9, 2015

Dodong Tingkas, a Manobo farmer in Sitio Peroy, was falsely accused as a NPA was used as a guide by combined elements of the 68th IBPA and Alamara. He was threatened that if the military and Alamara are attacked, they would come back for him.

March 27, 2015

Ariel Villafuerte, a teacher of the Salugpungan school in Pangaan, went to Sitio Bagang to round up the students who were unable to go out of the community out of fear of the military Upon arrival, he was asked by the forces of the 68th IBPA regarding the whereabouts of the NPA. Villafuerte denied having knowledge, and told the soldiers that he and the students have to go and practice for the upcoming graduation ceremonies of their school. The AFP troops asked once more for the NPA's, and if Villafuerte was going to attend their upcoming anniversary. Villafuerte said no to all these. Later he and the children were able to leave Bagang.

April 1, 2015

An unknown number of elements from the 68th IBPA encamped in Sitio Nasilaban. On April 18, Kylo Buntolan, a resident in the area, was accused by the military as a member of the NPA, and coerced into admitting. Buntolan denied membership in the said group. The military left later after instructing Buntolan to not tell anyone about what just tranpsired.

April 24, 2015

Elements under the 68th IBPA arrived in Sitio Nalubas, then encamped in the hill 50 meters away from the said community. The military were searching for Tungig Mansimuy-at, Mini Mansimuy-at, and Sio-an Tindag, leaders of the Salugpungan Ta Tanu Igkanugon.

April 25, 2015

Around 2 PM Summy Buylowanon, Mantolinan Dawsay, and Pablo Mansimuyat were harassed by elements under the 68th IBPA. They were accused of being members of the NPA. Summy was later butt-stroked by one of the military, then the ground in front of them fired upon. The military left moments after.

April 26, 2015

A team from the 68th IBPA entered the house of Datu Ansag Mansimuy-at in Sitio Nalubas without Ansag's consent, their rifles poised in assault form. The milittary searched for an M14 rifle that had been allegedly hidden by Ansag in his home.

April 29, 2015

Okang Mantoo, a limp Manobo, met the same fate as Datu Ansag. Okang was helpless to prevent the military from entering his home, and was made fun of by the the said men who asked about the cloth that he tied around his nose to hide his wound there, and said that he looked like a cow in it.

May 2, 2015

Military forces under the 68th IBPA arrived in Sitio Inayaman, Brgy. San Fernando, Bukidnon. On May 6, the military used up the sand supposed to be used for the construction of the school in the area as sandbags for their camp. The next day, they were instructed by the military to dig for the construction of the C.R., which the community vehemently opposed, as they already had a C.R. for their community. The next day, 27 individuals were made to clear grass in a nearby steep mountain to supposedly remove the cover the NPA snipers might take. These two were coercive actions on the part of the military, which greatly impaired the economic activities of Sitio Inayaman residents.

Also on May 2, 2015, members of the 68th IBPA arrived in Sitio Tibukag, encamping in the baranggay hall. Three days later they went to the DepEd school on the hill nearby and dug foxholes between the school and the Salugpungan highschool nearby.

May 6, 2015

Enteng Tumbasay was returning to his home from his cornfield in Sitio Nalubas when a group of soldiers from the 68th IBPA under the command of 1st Lt. Eric Sumalinday called him. They asked him where he hid the M14 rifle. Tumbasay replied that he had no gun with him. The soldiers insisted, saying that they received reports that he was hiding one. He was then asked who was running the Salugpungan school. Tumbasay said that it was the RMP (Rural Missionaries of the Philippines). The soldieres, dissatisfied with his answers, left him with saying that there would be a pulong-pulong (gathering) with the community members on the next day and that if he did not show up, it meant that he was a supporter of the NPA.

WATCH - Militarization of lumad communities explained in 5 minutes

Davao City - The current situation of Talaingod and Kapalong lumads under heavy militarization as part of the government's counterinsurgency program Oplan Bayanihan is explained by human rights alliance Karapatan-Southern Mindanao Region secretary-general Hanimay Suazo. (May 30, 2015)

Credits: Video clips from Kilab Multimedia and Salugpongan International.

Interview by FREEDOM for Lumads alliance (Food, Human Rights, Education, Environment, and Ancestral Domain for Lumads).

For donations and inquiries, email at freedomforlumads(at)gmail(dot)com.