One hundred
eighty (180) Lumads have left their homes anew for fear of being caught in the
crossfire between the military and NPA rebels in the area where three brothers
– Phillip, Philims and Philjohn Poloyapoy—were abducted, of which one
(Philjohn) was later found dead.
Capt. Joselito
Borces, spokesman of the 75th IB Philippine Army said Sunday that the evacuees
were from two sitios of Barangay
Bunawan Brooks ,
Bunawan, Agusan del Sur and that New People’s Army and allied groups told them
to evacuate to prevent them from talking to the Community Organizing for Peace
and Development of the Armed Forces of the Philippines
“The evacuees are
now staying at Barangay Bunawan Brook Multi-Purpose Hall. There is some
government food supply ration but lacking because LGU of Bunawan town can’t
justify to release funds because of problem of determination if the evacuation
was caused by natural or man-made calamities since they are NPA rebels induced”
Borces added.
Borces
claimed that every time the military’s COPD workers visited their homes to
assess the insurgency situation, residents told them that the rebels were also
organizing the communities.
COPD
soldiers are supposed to help build peace confidence measures, assess
socio-economic situation in the communities like how government can help
improve delivery of basic social services on health, education, livelihood,
improve agriculture productivity.
“It is the
insurgency problem that make communities poorer,” he said.
But Human Rights
group Karapatan-Caraga Secretary General Elaisa Pangilinan said that military
occupation of private and public areas in the community, including vacant
houses, community cooperatives, chapels and multipurpose halls were also the
reasons why the IPs are leaving their homes.
She added that
the evacuees started leaving their homes on February 3, 2015.
Meanwhile,
KARAPATAN Agusan del Sur said evacuees told them that soldiers remained in
theior communities and living in the houses they vacated.
Only this week,
some 1,000 Lumad evacuees from 14 tribal communities in San Luis, Agusan del
Sur returned to their homes after a dialogue organized by Agusan del Sur
Governor Eddie Bong Plaza and San Luis mayor Ronald Corvera March 19.
The evacuees
decried their situation in the evacuation center given the slow pace of
government help.
“We felt as if
there is no Philippine government existing due no DWSD, DOH, Dep Ed and other
government agencies like TESDA helping as in our day to day lives to overcome
poverty at least. Personnel of these government agencies should not just stay
in their air-conditioned offices,” said Datu Jumong, one of the tribal
leaders.
http://manilastandardtoday.com/2015/03/23/180-lumads-in-agusan-evacuate/
In all likelihood the "forced" evacuation was engineered by the Maoist New People's Army with assistance from KARAPATAN, a Communist Party of the Philippines human rights front organization. Forced evacuations of lumad tribal groups now appears to be a standard tactic of the CPP/NPA. It prevents the military from organizing these groups for the conduct of peace and development activities, puts the military on the propaganda defensive by having to react to allegations of HR abuses and "militarization" of lumad areas, and it forces the military to have deal with IDPs rather than pursue its own peace and development agenda.
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