Lumad 'well provided for' but 'how long we can sustain them, I don't know' - Surigao del Sur gov

From InterAksyon (Sep 9): Lumad 'well provided for' but 'how long we can sustain them, I don't know' - Surigao del Sur gov



Lumad refugees at the sports center in Tandag City, Surigao del Sur. (photo by Erwin Mascarinas, InterAksyon.com)

The close to 3,000 lumad refugees sheltering at the sports center in Tandag City are “well provided for” even as Surigao del Sur Governor Johnny Pimentel acknowledged, “how long we can sustain them, I don’t know.”

Speaking to InterAksyon.com by phone, Pimentel noted that “more people continue to arrive every day,” as he worried about a possible outbreak of ailments among the refugees, who fled more than 20 villages in five towns to escape atrocities blamed on the Magahat militia.

Pimentel has vainly been urging the military to disarm and disband the Magahat, whose members he says are trained and armed by the Army.

“We need to finish this ordeal,” Pimentel said even as he admitted it might take between one to two months before the evacuees are able to return to their villages.

He pointed out that many of the refugees, especially children and students of the Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development or ALCADEV in Han-ayan, Barangay Diatagon, Lianga town, remain “severely traumatized.”

Han-ayan was where, on September 1, Magahat militiamen rounded up residents, including staff and students of the award-winning tribal school, who were then made to witness the execution of tribal leaders Dionel Campos, chairman of the Malahutayong Pakigbisog Alang Sa Sumusunod or MAPASU, and his cousin Datu Juvillo “Bello” Sinzo.

The staff and students of ALCADEV later found the body of the school’s executive director Emerito Samarca, who had been stabbed and his throat slit, inside a room.  

Around 2,000 residents of Han-ayan fled after the killings.

“The children continue to shake and cry or just stare blankly,” Pimentel said.

For the moment, Pimentel said, his greatest worry is “if an outbreak” occurs, noting that two children have been confirmed to have chicken pox “but the parents refuse to take them to the hospital.”

“I am worried they might infect not only other children but also pregnant women,” the governor said.

He also confirmed that a four-year old Manobo girl from San Miguel town had died Tuesday “although we are still verifying” if the conditions at the refugee center may have contributed to the death of the child, who was a known asthmatic.

The San Miguel evacuees fled their homes also on September 1 after learning of the killings in Lianga, walking all night in heavy rain.

“We started out with 1,200 evacuees; we now have 2,800 and every day, more arrive,” Pimentel said.

Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas II briefly visited the evacuees on Tuesday and called Secretaries Janette Garin of Health and Corazon Soliman of Social Welfare and Development asking them to send immediate assistance, Pimentel said.

“But that is the short term solution,” he stressed. “The long term solution is to disarm, disband or kill” the militia, something, he added, only the Army that created them can do.

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/117274/lumad-well-provided-for-but-how-long-we-can-sustain-them-i-dont-know---surigao-del-sur-gov