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.
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.
TALAINGOD, Davao del Norte - Ata-Manobo children complained that they were included in sporadic military questioning of residents in this mainly tribal town about the whereabouts of New People's Army…
The Ata-Manobo Lumads repeated history as they fled from heavily militarized villages on foot and upon reaching access roads, boarded trucks to seek refuge in Davao City. Along the way, a mother gave birth, while a 12-day old infant died.
Datu Doloman Dawsay, spokesperson of the Manobo organization Salugpongan Ta’ Tanu Igkanugon (Unite to defend the land) said that military operations of 68th Infantry Battalion, 60th IB and 4th Special Forces displaced 1,353 individuals comprising 309 families from the sitios of Pongpong, Nalubas, Bagang, Bayabas, Saso, Lasakan, Sambolongan and Bugni of Barangay Palma Gil, Talaingod, Davao del Norte.