To address the indigenous people’s lack of access to education, President Rodrigo Duterte should build more schools rather than threatening to bomb educational facilities in Mindanao’s tribal communities, a tribal leader said on Wednesday.
An environmental group condemned two separate incidents of harassment against activists believed to be committed by military agents.
Lumad educators, students, and parents formally filed charges against the military whom they accuse of attacking their schools at the Commission on Human Rights Region 11 on Thursday.
Relatives of slain and detained farmers from Compostela Valle trooped to the Commission of Human Rights Region 11 Office here to file formal complaints against the military for alleged human rights violations.
The Army denied the human rights group’s report that government troops were involved in the shooting incident of a farmer’s family in Mabini town Compostela Valley Province last Thursday.
A 52-year-old woman farmer was killed and at least four others were wounded after a strafing incident in Mabini town, Compostela Valley on Thursday, July 13.
The brutal slaying of 28 land and environmental defenders in 2016 underscores the risk of environmental activism in the Philippines, placing the country again in the global spotlight as one of the deadliest countries in Asia and the world for environment activists.
Joniver Abo is already 21 years old, but he is determined to finish his high school education and hopes to become a teacher someday.
The military dismissed a member of its Citizen Armed Force Geographical Unit personnel on July 1 after they verified that the militiaman had indeed fired upon a school in Talaingod town in Davao del Norte.
The human rights group Karapatan in Southern Mindanao raised concern on the possible increase in cases of human rights violations as President Rodrigo Duterte indicated to the men and women of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology a dubious style in dealing with those involved in crimes, particularly drugs.
