The PASAKA Confederation of Lumad Organizations in Southern Mindanao, an alliance of several town-based Lumad organizations expressed indignation at the joint resolution issued by the Regional Peace and Order Council 11 and the Regional Defense Council 11, which urged the office of the president to review the existing memorandum of agreement between the Department of Social Welfare and Development and PASAKA.
A children’s advocacy group said classes were disrupted as school children were “too afraid to go to school” after military troops “encamped” in their classrooms in a farflung village in Compostela, Compostela Valley province.
Hundreds of Ata-Manobos from Talaingod, Davao del Norte marched at the office of logging firm Alcantara & Sons in Lanang, Davao City Wednesday to protest the company’s Integrated Forest Management Agreement, which they said is a commercial logging venture encroaching their ancestral domain. (davaotoday.com photo by Ace R. Morandante)
Matigsalug leader Cristina Lantao said troops from the Army’s 25th Infantry Battalion arrived in their community in Sitio Bermuda, Purok 4 on Wednesday and told them they would occupy their village while conducting a three-week operation against the New People’s Army.
A Bagobo-Tagabawa garb on display at a souvenir store at SM Annex in Ecoland Drive, is part of the city tourism’s promotion of Davao’s indigenous garb and accessories. (davaotoday.com photo by Medel V. Hernani)
Birang ug uban pang sugilanon sa mga Bayaning Lumad sa Mindanao assumes the dual function of a school children’s book and a pastime for adult readers interested in humble beginnings, native birth, rituals and assaults. The color and realism of indigenous culture is interspersed in the universal concepts of freedom, valor, independence and patriotism—themes that are lost in the commercial pageantry and crass spectacle of Philippine indigenous festivals.
The Department of Social Welfare and Development XI claims these Matigsalug children from Davao City’s Baguio District attending Friday’s observance of the World Indigenous Peoples Day at the Royal Mandaya Hotel are part of the IP beneficiaries who comprise 38.5% of the total 188,501 DSWD’s Pantawid Pamilya recipients. (davaotoday.com photo by Medel V. Hernani)
by John Rizle Saligumba
Davao Today
Initial reports from Karapatan Southern Mindanao showed that Agusanon residents fled on Sunday from Barangays Kauswagan, Sabud, Mansanitas and San Mariano. The residents along with 224 children evacuated to Barangay Kauswagan Elementary School.
By DANILDA L. FUSILERO
Davao Today
“The IPRA law only served as a tool to legally plunder our ancestral lands. The law, in its present form, cannot provide the realization and attainment of our rights” — Francesca Tolentino, secretary general of the Katribu Partylist
By CHERYLL FIEL
After one month and 13 days at the evacuation camp, the Manobo evacuees finally went home to Lianga on August 30. Aboard a convoy of 40 trucks to barangay Diatagon, the lumads left the grounds of the Diocese of Tandag that served as their evacuation camp. But barely a month after coming home, the soldiers are back again, recruiting them to the Task Force Gantangan, a paramilitary group to fight the government�s war against the insurgents.
