It is supremely dissonant that, on what is supposedly Indigenous Peoples’ Month in the Philippines, the local police of the province of Kalinga proposes to demolish the monument to three historical figures to the Indigenous struggles of the Cordillera region.
Rights advocates say that presidential peace adviser and retired general Carlito Galvez’s challenge to let European Union and United Nations investigate UCCP Haran’s alleged profiting from the Lumad in its sanctuary may reveal instead the real reason why the Lumad are displaced.
The alleged leader of a paramilitary group in Surigao del Sur tagged in the 2015 Lianga massacre of a Lumad school administrator and two community leaders was among those killed in an ambush staged by the New People’s Army on October 4.