Culture

One of the main destinations of this week’s national fact-finding and solidarity mission (NFFSM) to investigate human rights violations was the municipality of Talaingod, Davao del Norte, which has been in the news lately with the evacuation of more than a thousand of its Manobo residents after the start of massive military operations in late March. More than 900 of them eventually found refuge in Davao City, where they stayed for a month until an agreement to remove military presence in their villages was reached in a dialogue facilitated by Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and Davao del Norte Governor Rodolfo del Rosario. They have since returned to their homes, but their recovery is just beginning, and its completion by no means certain.