By Ronalyn V. Olea in Manila  

Philippine state security forces have repeatedly blocked members of a fact-finding mission investigating human rights violations against peasant farmers and indigenous Lumads in Mindanao.

Since their arrival at the airports in Davao City, Lagindinangan and Butuan City yesterday, all the way to highly-militarised peasant and Lumad communities in Southern Mindanao, Northern Mindanao and the Caraga region, members of the three-team mission have been subjected to different forms of harassment and intimidation.

Suspected soldiers took pictures of the Caraga team members and “welcomed” them with a banner that read “Just do it right” upon their arrival at the airport in Butuan City.

The Southern Mindanao team members saw streamers in Tagum City that read, “OUT NOW IFFSM [International fact-finding Mission]; WE WANT PEACE.”

READ MORE: Manila brands volunteer teachers as ‘terrorists’, say Lumad advocates

Anakpawis Representative Ariel Casilao said the military was behind the streamers.

-Partners-

“The AFP [Armed Forces of the Philippines] has no credibility in talking peace. We thus revise the slogan; instead it should read: AFP OUT NOW; WE WANT PEACE,” he said.

The Northern Mindanao mission team was blocked three times by police and military forces from the airport in Lagindingan to Cagayan de Oro.

From the city to the mission site in Patpat village in Malaybalay, the team was blocked eight more times.

‘No wonder military don’t want us’
Rafael Mariano, former Agrarian Reform Secretary and head of the Northern Mindanao team, said, “We came here for a very urgent reason, we came here to verify mounting reports of rights abuses against peasant and Lumad communities perpetrated allegedly by military elements.

“No wonder the military people don’t want us here.”

President Rodrigo Duterte placed the whole island under martial law on May 24, 2017, after an attack in Marawi City.

Citing “continued threat of terrorism and rebellion,” Duterte asked Congress to extend martial law until December this year. Duterte’s supporters in Congress railroaded the extension.

Seventy-one full battalions of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) are operating in Mindanao, of which 41 are focused on counterinsurgency operations.

The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said at least 65 percent of the AFP’s combat troops are concentrated in Mindanao, where large-scale foreign plantations and mining concessions are to be found.

Human rights alliance Karapatan documented 126 victims of political killings as of December 2017, of whom 110 were farmers mostly coming from Mindanao.

In Southern Mindanao alone, 63 cases of extrajudicial killings have been recorded,

‘Bulldozing their way into vast lands’
“The unabated militarisation and Martial Law itself in Mindanao must be understood as a means for government, big landlords, oligarchs and multinational corporations to further bulldoze their way into the vast lands and resources of the island,” Mariano said.

“This is not the way to address the roots of the armed conflict. This is not the way to a just and lasting peace.”

The teams also reported to have been closely tailed by several vehicles from the airport to the orientation sites and to the villages where interviews with victims victims were to be held.

Undeterred, the teams were able to finally proceed to their respective mission areas.

“We managed to get past all the checkpoints so far after seemingly endless negotiations with the state forces but this is only the first day and the day is still long and so we must remain vigilant throughout the rest of the day and the entire duration of the three-day mission,” Mariano said.

Former congressmen Satur Ocampo and Fernando Hicap, and incumbent representatives of the Makabayan bloc, are among the delegates of the International Fact-Finding Mission to Defend Filipino Peasants’ Land and Human Rights Against Militarism and Plunder in Mindanao organised by KMP and the Mindanao for Civil Liberties.

Also joining the mission are the Asian Peasant Coalition, Pesticide Action Network – Asia Pacific, People’s Coalition for Food Sovereignty, Rural Missionaries of the Philippines, International League of Peoples Struggles (ILPS) Commission 6, Youth for Food Sovereignty (YFS), Karapatan, and Tanggol Magsasaka.

In the past two weeks, a group of Lumad educators have visited New Zealand to talk about the human rights violations in education as part of the Save Our Schools programme.

Ronalyn V. Olea is a reporter for Butlalat.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Zealand and Filipino teachers, community advocates and students this week launched an open letter appealing to Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to end military abuses against indigenous Lumad people in the southern island of Mindanao.

They also called on the Manila government to scrap a terrorist listing of Lumad leaders and community activists.

The appeal was made in response to a group of Lumad advocates and teachers from the Save Our Schools (SOS) network who have been visiting New Zealand for a speaking tour.

The activists spoke at Auckland’s Peace Place in their last meeting before returning to the Philippines.

Pacific Media Centre’s Del Abcede was there to capture the event in images.

Save Our Schools

1. Fritzi Junance Magbanua …. indigenous Lumad campaigning to save their schools. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

2. Pacific Media Centre journalist Jean Bell interviews Fritzi. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

3. Te Waha Nui reporter Rahul Bhattarai interviews Lorena Sigua. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

4. Fritzi, Rahul and Lorena at Auckland’s Peace Place. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

5. Janet Roth speaking with Amie Dural of Auckland Philippine Solidarity. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

6. “Land is life” to the indigenous Lumads. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

7. “Land of promise”. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

8. Lumad activists tagged as “terrorists” by Duterte government. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

9. Mining on ancestral land in Mindanao. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

10. “Yutang Kabilin” … ancestral land. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

11. Singing an indigenous Lumad song about their struggle. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

12. Posters on the Save Lumad schools campaign. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

13. A call to stop the killings of indigenous people in the Philippines. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

14. “Don’t bomb Lumad schools” plea. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

15. A group photo of Lumad activists and supporters at Auckland’s Peace Place. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Volunteer teachers are being wrongly labelled as “terrorists” by the Philippine government while paramilitary and mining activity increases in the country, say visiting indigenous Lumad education advocates.

Fritizi Junance Magbanua, a volunteer teacher and administrator with the Save Our Schools network, says teachers, schools and communities of indigenous peoples are being targeted and labelled as terrorists by the government.

The Save Our Schools network is a collection of 215 community based schools that operate throughout the southern Mindanao island region in the Philippines.

The network is part of community groups and advocates that fight for indigenous peoples rights to “defend their land, right to education, right to self-determination,” said Lorena Sigua at a public meeting in Auckland’s Peace Place last night.

She is a volunteer at Education Development Institute (EDI) curriculum development based in Mindanao.

“Save Our Schools has documented 89 harassments of our schools, 18 military activities inside our school vicinity, 27 schools forcibly shut down because of the intensifying military presence in our area,” said Magbanua.

This does not just apply to school teachers. “The environmental activists, human rights activists are also being targeted and tagged as terrorists,” said Sigua.

The indigenous people, known collectively as Lumads, are the main people suffering. “Our indigenous peoples in the Philippines are now being attacked by our government,” said Magbanua.

“Mostly those who are killed are our parents and our tribal leaders who constructed the schools.”

Mining behind military threat
The threat of paramilitary and government military activity is part of the government’s move to allow mining by multinational corporations in the area.

“The southern Mindanao is blessed with a lot of resources. It is the mining capital of Philippines. As you know, big businesses are coming over to take advantage of that,” Sigua said.

“Ironically, we are the poorest region but it is the mining capital,” said Magbanua.

“When mining is in our area, the first step our government will do is deploy their troops to give way to the mining equipment. They harass people to vacate their land.”

It can also turn violent. “One of our supporters was killed a couple of weeks ago by a paramilitary group.”

Magbanua pointed to the actions of President Rodrigo Durterte which she said were encouraging the violence.

“In the first six months that President Durterte was elected, we were hopeful for a change… he says he was a socialist, and a leftist, a pro-Lumad, and anti-mining.”

‘Changed his tune’
But in November 2017 when the APEC summit took place in Manila and President Trump visited the Philippines, Duterte seemed to change his mind.

“After the visit of Trump, he changed his tune. He welcomed all the investors to extract our natural resources. So he’s a puppet,” said Magbanua.

Sigua said: “The educators in Mindanao are being targeted as terrorists.

“The indigenous peoples are now being empowered and educated because of the schools. If they are empowered, they know their rights.”

Magbanua said: “Duterte was the one who says he would bomb our schools… Under his regime, 37 Lumads have been extra-judicially killed under martial law.”

Sigua said: “There is massive militarisation in the in area. Students are evacuating, the community is evacuating.”

“There is now militarisation in the indigenous communities,” she said. This was a reaction against the fear and tension caused by other military forces in the area.

‘Land is life’
Land is often at the center of the conflicts. “We believe that land is life,” says Magbanua.

“We, the indigenous people, need to protect it from mining and multinational corporations. We have to defend this for the next generation.

“We get all our needs from the mountains. From our medicines, our foods it is our supermarket and hospital.

“We call our land the land of promise. The greedy people want to take it away from us and convert it into banana plantations and mining areas.”

After getting her university degree, Fritzi Junance Magbanua committed herself to serving indigenous people.

“For six years now I’ve been teaching and monitoring my co-teachers, facilitating the training, and doing some psychosocial therapy with my students.”

Magbanua has never thought about doing anything different than being a volunteer teacher.

‘Indigenous need me’
“After I graduated, a lot of opportunities came my way but I turned them down. Somebody needs me and it is the indigenous people.”

“It is my commitment and responsibility to be with them and serve them without anything in return.”

A turning point for her was her personal connection to the Lumad’s struggle. “By blood I am also a Lumad. I see their plight, their hunger for education. When I have this knowledge, I just want to help and educate them also.”

I am a part of their struggle to defend their land. Their plight at Mindanao is to uphold their right to self-determination.”

Lorena Sigua is from Manila. She is a graduate of the the University of the Philippines and currently is a volunteer at the Education Development Institute (EDI) curriculum development based in Mindanao.

Sigua was inspired to get involved with Save Our Schools after witnessing the Lakbayan march, where indigenous peoples were protesting about their concerns.

Challenging life
Life as a volunteer teacher in Mindanao is challenging, said Magbanua.

“Once you are a volunteer, you are not just a teacher. You are a counsellor too. The community respects us and sees us as their hero because no body cares. Especially the government in our communities, but only us teachers and the institutions we came from.

Being a teacher for the indigenous peoples has a lot of sacrifices. We are not salary based. We receive NZ$100 a month.

The teachers often must travel to remote locations to reach local communities. “We are deployed in far flung areas.”

The furtherest place the network serves requires a two-day walk through a snaking path to travel to. “We cross one river 52 times. But it’s just a little sacrifice. For us we are ready to commit ourselves to the less fortunate who are hungry for education.”

The organisation demands no payment for their work. “Our education is free for all. We don’t ask for anything in return. In fact, we provide school supplies, toiletries to continue and sustain their education.

“On our island in Mindanao, there is no electricity, no signal. You have to walk an hour to search for a signal. You literally have to climb up a tree just to search for the signal.”

Asia-Pacific consultation
Kevin McBride, national co-ordinator of Pax Christi Aotearoa, hosted the talk.

“I had expectations it would be a good revelation of the situation in Mindanao of the Lumad people,” said McBride.

In December 2017, McBride represented Pax Christi in attending an Asia-Pacific Consultation in the Philippines.

With the New Zealand government being in touch with President Duterte, McBride believes New Zealand should try to do more to help.

“We do have opportunities to raise these issues and hold them to account for their activities. Shamefully, too often we don’t as it would affect our trade.”

Appeal for help
Every year the indigenous peoples go to the capital region in the Philippines to rally and send a message to the government about their concerns.

It is called a Lakbayan, said Sigua, and it was similar to the Hikoi taken by indigenous Māori in New Zealand.

“We are sharing a struggle with Māori,” said Magbanau.

“We are appealing to your government to support our calls to stop the attacks on the activists. The activists in the Philippines are being tagged as terrorists.”

Jean Bell is contributing editor of the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch freedom project. Additional reporting by Rahul Bhattarai who is an Auckland University of Technology student studying towards a postgraduate diploma in Journalism.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz