“We are not terrorists, we are indigenous people.”
Lumad evacuees here hope to hear in President Rodrigo Duterte’s third State of the Nation Address slated next week to end Martial Law in Mindanao, saying “the declaration has caused havoc” in their communities.
Children rights advocates are launching a campaign to raise to 16 years old the age of accountability in statutory rape cases.
More than a thousand indigenous people from 15 rural villages in the municipalities of San Agustin, Tago, and Lianga, this province fled their homes on Monday, July 15, after a month of military encampment of their communities.
Fishermen here has asked the city government to provide them safer access to the shores to for them to land and to protect their boats against battering monsoon waves.
Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) Bishop Felixberto Calang has questioned the way more than a dozen individuals were arrested by law enforcers in General Santos City on Wednesday night.
Detained church workers and rights activists were released on bail after their arrest on the evening of July 4 in General Santos City while holding an organizational consultation on peasant and tribal issues.
Contrary to the claim of the Philippine National Police, human rights group Karapatan said, on Friday, that the case of the strip-search that took place in Makati City was not an isolated case as similar incidents happened involving state forces and agents in various parts of the country.
Davao Today accompanied the Save our Schools Network when it conducted a national fact-finding mission comprised of various rights groups on July 27 to 30 at Barangay Basak, Lebak to investigate the incidents of harassment, and encampment of Lumad schools and communities by government troops in the province.
Amidst reports from human rights group that authorities are responsible for the spate of forced surrender of peasant and indigenous people, the Armed Forces of the Philippines in Southern Mindanao claimed thousands of individuals are undergoing “re-orientation” under its counter-insurgency campaign.
