As schools across the country are holding commencement exercises, schoolchildren from Barangay Palma Gil in Talaingod, Davao del Norte would be trudging, instead of marching, and going not up a stage to be applauded, but down from their mountain communities. In the process they have earned a new title - not graduates, but bakwit, evacuees, the displaced.
As far as I can recall, even during the American colonial period an agreement had been forged between the Moro people under the Sultan of Sulu and the US government. This was called the Bates Treaty. But it was shortlived having been abrogated by the US government, because in the first place it was not meant to last but just as an expedient move to “divide and rule” the Filipinos. At that time the US was at war with the Filipino revolutionaries. They wanted to concentrate their armed forces in Luzon. And so the Bates Treaty was a tactical trick to hold the Moro armed resistance at bay, while they were busy trying to crush the Filipino revolutionary forces in the north.
Human rights group Karapatan criticized government security elements for attempting to pull out and arrest its staff member during a protest caravan here on Thursday by alleging her as a New People’s Army leader.
Davao journalists donated blood in an activity organized by Bugkos Media Action Group called "Beating the Deadline" at NCCC Mall Matina on Friday. (Medel Hernani/davaotoday.com)
Some 1,500 Ata Manobos left their villages last April 1 in the hinterlands of Talaingod, Davao del Norte after what they said were harassments brought by military troops occupying their communities for weeks.