Indigenous people communities raised alarm over the Arroyo government?s heightened counter-insurgency operations saying these will lead to the escalation of human rights violations from among their ranks. ?Indigenous peoples? communities…
What was once a farming village of indigenous peoples is now a vast coffee plantation that straddles six towns in three provinces. The plantation prevents the T?boli villagers from expanding their own farmland.
By Keith Bacongco
LAKE SEBU, South Cotabato — Nestled on top of the rugged mountains of Daguma Mountain Range, sitio Datal Bonlangon of barangay Ned in Lake Sebu, South Cotabato, is a home to T?boli villagers who have been robbed of their rights to their ancestral land and deprived of livelihood.
What was once a farming village of indigenous peoples is now a vast coffee plantation that straddles six towns in three provinces. The plantation prevents the T?boli villagers from expanding their own farmland.
In 1991, the Department of Environment Natural Resources (DENR) issued an Industrial Tree Plantation License Agreement (ITPLA) to Silvicultural Industries Inc. (SII) but a year later it was converted into Industrial Forest Plantation Management Agreement (IFMA). The agreement, which will expire on December 2016, covers 11,862 hectares.
The human-rights group Karapatan continues its verbal attacks against the military in the wake of the surrender of the suspected leader of the bandit group terrorizing the residents of Paquibato.…
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By Cheryll D. Fiel
davaotoday.com
DAVAO CITY ? ?Commander Dante,? the most wanted man in this city who have been blamed for terrorizing residents in Paquibato District the past months, is now in the hands of the authorities.
Police identified ?Commander Dante? as Dante Lumuyod, a 38-year-old resident of Gumitan, a village in Paquibato.
Lumuyod was presented to Mayor Rodrigo Duterte Monday afternoon after he surrendered to the police and the military last Saturday in Paquibato, a hinterland district of the city, known for being the battleground between the military and the communist New People?s Army.
By Grace S. Uddin
DAVAO CITY (davaotoday.com) ? It?s easy to get mesmerized by the glitter of a gold ring. But there?s a story behind its allure.
It takes the excavation of 20 tons of soil to produce such a ring. Imagine for a second the toll such a process exacts. Destroyed land. Felled trees. Stripped mountains.
In the context of the Philippine countryside, include these: Displaced communities, dispossessed families, violence, even death.
Such is the havoc large-scale mining has wrought in many communities in the Philippine countryside, anti-mining activists said last week.