Even after her death, discussions about Talaingod chieftain Bai Bibyaon Ligkayan Bigkay raise the issue of ancestral rights and red tagging that continue to hound and divide her tribe.
Posts by tag: lumad
Lumad school teacher Rose Hayahay holds a photo of fellow teacher Gelejurain Ngujo II, as Lumad advocates observe the second death anniversary of the New Bataan 5 murders. Ngujo, with fellow teacher Chad Booc, health worker Elegyn Balonga, and two drivers were killed in New Bataan, Davao de Oro two years ago, as Lumad advocates hold soldiers accountable for their murders. (Kath Cortez/davaotoday.com)
For Lumad students, she was called ‘Ino Bai’, their term for elderly or grandmother, whom they encountered over the past seven years and helped them understand their campaign to defend their Lumad schools and ancestral land.
As the first ever woman chieftain of the tribe, Bigkay was credited for uniting, empowering, and rallying the Lumad across villages to stand up to the loggers.
Today’s young generation may be engrossed with mobile and video games, but in this year’s Dula Kadayawan (Kadayawan Games), part of Davao City’s Kadayawan festivity, young indigenous and Moro people got to participate and showcase their traditional games to the public, untouched by modernization.
A group of young people from an indigenous community is maximizing its members’ artistic talents to revive and preserve their traditional practices and promote environmental protection.
A volunteer teacher for Lumad schools received the 2023 Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk in Dublin, Ireland for her work despite harassments and red-tagging.
One of the Lumad students held at a facility inside the Social Welfare and Development Office in Region 7 and her father were reunited late afternoon on March 12.
But there can be no further wondering why government feels threatened by progressive education. State forces insist that they “rescued” Lumad students—they rescued them from further learning how government assists in the corporate plunder of their ancestral lands, from realizing the potential of their collective strength as our young heroes then realized their collective strength.
Lawyers and lumad advocates slammed the Philippine National Police for keeping a Bakwit School teacher away from family and lawyers in the past days.
