Mayor Rodrigo Duterte (with mic) calls for the pullout of troops in Paquibato District during a presscon with the Makabayan coalition that conducted a fact-finding mission in the area on alleged human rights violations. (Ace R. Morandante/davaotoday.com)
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.
Advocates for HIV/AIDS awareness gathered at Rizal Park to take part in the International AIDS Candlelight Memorial held every May 16 by grassroots communities reportedly in over 115 countries. (Medel V. Hernani/davaotoday.com)
They slept by day. At night, they left. Following the trail of the river, they walked, crawled, and stumbled. Datu Tungig Mansumuy-at didn’t use flashlights so that they won’t be seen. They first carried their children then went back for the ill.
The Makabayan coalition led by Satur Ocampo (second, right) urges the government to pull out military troops in communities in Southern Mindanao after human rights violations were documented in this week’s fact finding mission. (Ace R. Morandante/davaotoday.com)
ACT Teachers Partylist Representative Antonio Tinio (right) bats for salary increases of public school teachers and non-teaching personnel through House Bill 245. At left is ACT Davao spokesperson Elenito Escalante. (Ace R. Morandante/davaotoday.com)
Barangay leaders of village in Magpet, North Cotabato said they planned to pass a resolution that would ask the government Armed Forces to spare their residents from counterinsurgency interrogations, saying that the mostly farmer residents have expressed fear for their lives while working in isolated farms.
Their exact number could not be immediately determined but random interviews with some of them revealed that government teaching positions are currently the better, if not, the only option over issues of security of tenure, higher paying job and other perks.
Activists in Davao blamed the power outage on the government for favoring private power firms over efficient public service. (Medel V. Hernani/davaotoday.com)
This city lags behind in awareness to prevent the spread of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes the dreaded acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), as the number of HIV-AIDS cases rose in the first quarter of this year.
