One of the Lumad students held at a facility inside the Social Welfare and Development Office in Region 7 and her father were reunited late afternoon on March 12.
Lawyers and lumad advocates slammed the Philippine National Police for keeping a Bakwit School teacher away from family and lawyers in the past days.
Datu Benito Bay-ao was one of the Lumad leaders who were taken into custody after that disgraceful raid at the Bakwit School in Cebu City. Just six years ago, Dats Bens (as we call him) spoke with pride and optimism in this documentary about their Lumad school in their village of Dulyan, and across the other upland villages in the Pantaron under the Salugpongan Ta Tanu Igkanugon organization. Schooling in the cities made them ashamed of, and forget about, being a Lumad, he said. But with their schools built right in their domain, young Lumad could learn while keeping their tradition alive.
A Lumad student in a Bakwit School in UP Diliman had this response to the recent pronouncement of the Philippine National Police Region 7 that their schools are “training grounds for child warriors."