Army won't let guests go to tribal school blessing as head teacher refutes military 'sniping' claim

From InterAksyon (Oct 12): Army won't let guests go to tribal school blessing as head teacher refutes military 'sniping' claim



Children of a tribal school perform a dance.

A tribal school in the hinterlands of Baganga town, Davao Oriental held its blessing and inauguration rites Monday without guests who the military barred from attending because of supposed communist rebel activity.

This is the second time in less than two weeks that teachers and guests on their way to attend activities at tribal schools have been barred.

But the head teacher of the MISFI Academy in Sitio Kasunugan, Barangay Mahanog, disputed the military’s claims, saying the consensus of leaders and members of the Mandaya community the school was that the scattered gunfire they heard on Sunday was a “drama” to justify preventing officials of the Mindanao Interfaith Services Foundation Inc. and other visitors from attending the rites.

Milagros Maglunsod-Tan, MISFI administrator, who was with 30 guests stopped Sunday afternoon at a checkpoint by troops of the 67th Infantry Battalion commanded by Lieutenant Miguel Porras in Barangay Mahan-ub, said they negotiated Monday morning at the Baganga municipal hall with an officer of the battalion who refused to identify himself but whose surname she learned was Soquila.

However, she said Soquila refused to honor a letter from the administrator of the Baganga local government asking that they be allowed to proceed to Kasunugan because “they were not allowing anyone in or out of the area for a week until they could clear it of rebels.”

On Sunday, Porras claimed their troops had come under sniper fire from New People’s Army guerrillas to justify why he could not allow Maglunsod-Tan and her companions to go to Kasunugan.

Roger Aumada, head teacher of the Kasunugan school, who InterAksyon.com spoke to by phone, acknowledged that “we heard scattered shots yesterday. First one shot then, after several minutes, three shots, and then, after several more minutes, a few more shots.”

However, he said, “there was no return fire as would be expected if there were two armed groups shooting at each other. This led the community to conclude that it was all a drama to justify preventing our guests from attending.”

As he spoke, songs could be heard in the background, indicating the start of the program, which he said was attended by officials of the barangay and of the local lumad organization, the Mandaya Mahanog Tribal Association.

Aumada described Monday’s event as especially significant for the Kasunugan Mandaya because it marked the successful rebuilding and reopening of the school, which originally opened in 2010 but was destroyed by a storm the following year.

The school teaches more than 70 children ranging from pre-school to Grade 3 and is one of a network of learning institutions run by MISFI in lumad communities throughout Mindanao.

The past years have seen many documented incidents of mass evacuations because of the occupation by soldiers and military-backed militias of lumad communities and schools, often marked by atrocities.

However, the lumad and the groups who support them say the military accusations and the subsequent atrocities stem from their opposition to the entry of large-scale mining, logging and commercial agriculture into their ancestral lands.

This year, tribal schools and their staff and students have continued to be harassed and attacked, with, in one instance, deadly consequences.

On September 28, more than a hundred staff, students and guests on their way to the 11th foundation anniversary of the Salugpungan Ta Ta'nu Igkanugon Learning Center Inc., which also operates a network of tribal schools, were stopped by members of the Alamara militia at a military detachment in Talaingod, Davao del Norte.

Although they eventually found an alternate route to the celebration, a number of the attendees were harassed by the military and police on their way back from the festivities.

 The military has openly accused schools run by MISFI and Salugpungan and the communities they serve of supporting communist rebels.

In Surigao del Sur, more than 4,000 persons have so far left their homes since August, the bulk of them after the September 1 murders of Emerito Samarca, executive director of the Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development, and Manobo leaders Dionel Campos and Datu Bello Sinzo in Lianga town by the Magahat militia.

In the town of Kitaotao, Bukidnon, the barangay captain of White Culaman had also threatened to force the closure of the MISFI-run Fr. Fausto Tentorio Memorial School, a free boarding school for Grade 7 and 8 lumad students, but the Department of Education opposed the move.

The school was named after the Italian missionary murdered in Arakan, North Cotabato by militiamen in 2011.

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/118801/army-wont-let-guests-go-to-tribal-school-blessing-as-head-teacher-refutes-military-sniping-claim