Today’s View: To the children of Lumads in Bukidnon

The recent bombing in the area, which affected at least 44 families, including women and children, further paints a dark and grimy picture of impunity of the Aquino administration, a stark contrast to his brightly colored yellow lies and fairy tales of “matuwid na daan.”

By BEVERLY ANN S. MUSNI, YR.
Davao Today

I remember years ago, when I was working as a writer and researcher for rights group Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of Human Rights) in Cagayan de Oro City. We were in Agusan del Norte then, interviewing human rights victims in an evacuation center. Their village was destroyed after the military dropped off bombs following an encounter with the New People’s Army (NPA). Hundreds of civilians were targeted, accused either as NPA members or their supporters.

I was tasked to interview this little 12-year old girl. She had the loveliest round brown eyes I have ever seen, the softest curls which fell on her shoulders, aristocratic nose, sun-kissed cheeks, lips shaped as if Cupid itself has molded them and perfect olive brown skin. I thought to myself, she could easily surpass any popular young star on TV.

But I noticed also that her eyes, filled with fear, darted from corner to corner of the room, refusing to make eye contact as if searching for something or someone.

She was a Lumad. And she was looking for her family.

She got separated from her family while fleeing the village. She hid in the bushes until the commotion stopped. And she walked for almost two days to a nearby village just to seek help. All she could tell me was that her mother told her to run with her little sister. But they got separated, too.

Yet I also saw in her eyes a fierce determination to find her little sister and her family. I don’t know if she ever got back to her village; if she ever found her little sister and her family. But I do know one thing: the bombings will not stop and the Lumads will continue to be targets of indiscriminate firings, tortures, killings, abductions as they are linked to the communist movement.

With the mining industry as one of the understated issues in our country, it has continued to spur countless human rights violations especially in San Fernando, Bukidnon. San Cristo Mining, an associate of Indophil Mining and a partner of SMI-Xstrata mining operations in Tampakan, South Cotabato, has virtually claimed San Fernando to its clutches as 13,000 hectares of the town is wholly covered by its acquired exploration permit. Along its claim, it has provoked a spate of abuses, spreading and sowing terror to the members of the Matigsalog community in Sitio Lumayag, San Fernando.

To date, Pres. Aquino has not addressed the plight of the Lumads, further banning them into a state of oblivion. At most, efforts to militarize these parts of Bukidnon were intensified. Following the report of Rural Missionaries of the Philippines, the 44 families who scampered to the forest for safety and survival were forced to come down to Sitio Lumayag and away from their homes and livelihood due to extreme hunger and the cold.

The Matigsalogs who are largely dependent on farming, hunting, gathering and gold-panning have been unjustly displaced from their ancestral domain and way of life, validating the fact that the Aquino government has, indeed, continued the legacy of culture of injustice and impunity of the Arroyo administration.

Last year, a Matigsalog tribal leader from San Fernando was also killed due to his staunch advocacy against the large-scale mining operations in the area. Yet, regardless of how these tribal communities have protested to the government, even reaching the Capitol Grounds of Malaybalay City and camping outside just to have their pleas heard, the Aquino administration and its cohorts who pretend to be working for the people, continue to weave an illusionary masterpiece of truth, transparency and justice while killing the people who put them in power.

I can only remember the face of that 12-year old girl I interviewed. Her fear and trauma forever embedded in her eyes. And I know that in each child in Sitio Lumayag, San Fernando, who has experienced this kind of atrocity, will feel terror, with every gunshot, every blasting of a bomb, every scream, every shout to run for their lives. They will bear this kind of memory throughout their lives.

That for you is the contribution of the Aquino government to the future of each child in San Fernando and their commitment of making sure that you remember what it is like to follow the “matuwid na daan,”a straight and direct road to hell and back.

Beverly Ann S. Musni, Yr. is a free spirit. She is a wanderlust, a dreamer and a frustrated rock star who dreams of travelling the world one day. She is a world peace advocate.