Bukidnon village chief orders tribal school to close for 'NPA ties'

From InterAksyon (Oct 1): Bukidnon village chief orders tribal school to close for 'NPA ties'



The Fr. Fausto Tentorio Memorial School run by MISFI in Sitio Dao, Barangay White Culaman, Kitaotao, Bukidnon. (contributed photo)

The chairman of a village in Kitaotao town, Bukidnon province ordered on Thursday a tribal school set up by a religious organization to shut down within two days or he would force it closed himself over its alleged links to communist rebels.

Evelyn Cabangal, a teacher of the Fr. Fausto Tentorio Memorial School, as the MISFI (Mindanao Interfaith Services Foundation Inc.) Academy is also known after the Italian missionary murdered in Arakan, North Cotabato in 2011, told InterAksyon.com by phone that the “memorandum order” issued by Felipe Cabugnason, barangay chairman of White Culaman was delivered to the school around 11 a.m.

White Culaman is the village where Army troops arrested 13 lumad late last month. All 13 have since been released from jail after a court dropped the charges filed against them.

Human rights advocates in northern Mindanao say the village remains occupied by soldiers.

Although she admitted being worried, Cabangal said they have no plans of complying with Cabugnason’s order, whose legality she questioned.

This was also confirmed in a separate interview by MISFI administrator Milagros Maglunsod-Tan, who called Cabugnason’s action an “abuse of authority” and said the foundation’s officers would meet on the possible legal actions they might take should the village chief make good on his threat.

Tan said they set up the secondary school in White Culaman, which is about an hour's hike from the village center, last year on the request of a local farmers’ organization because the only public high school their children could attend “is too far away.”

Beginning with Grade 7, the boarding school now teaches more than 40 Grade 7 and Grade 8 students, according to Cabangal.

“We used to have around 50 students but some of them quit because of fear” triggered by the accusations against the school, Cabangal said.

However, the military has openly accused schools set up by MISFI and other nongovernmental organizations in lumad communities in eastern and northern Mindanao of advocating support for the New People’s Army.

On several occasions, the communities where the schools are located have evacuated after soldiers and military-backed militias occupied their villages and even the learning centers. This is the case of some 700 Manobo from Talaingod, Davao del Norte who have been staying for several months at a church compound in Davao City.

The most extreme case thus far has been the September 1 murder of Emerito Samarca, executive director the Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development in Han-ayan, Barangay Diatagon, Lianga, Surigao del Sur by the Magahat militia. Two Manobo leaders, Dionel Campos and Datu Bello Sinzo were also executed by the militiamen in front of hundreds of residents.

The Lianga murders triggered the evacuation of more than 3,000 lumad who are now sheltering at the sports center in Tandag City.

Cabugnason’s memorandum, which Cabangal read over the phone, cited three grounds for ordering the MISFI Academy’s closure:

It lacks legal documents, such as a permit to operate

It is “a threat to all the safety of the living people in our barangay (sic)” because of its supposed links to the NPA

The lumber used to build the school has supposedly not been paid for

The village chief, in the memorandum, claimed that three rebels he identified as “Ka Makoy,” “Ka Ibyang” and “Isok” supposedly surveyed the site of the school and later “facilitated” the procurement of the lumber.

Invoking the authority he said he is granted by Section 389 of the Local Government Code, Cabugnason warned that “failure to comply … with the said memorandum order within the timeframe given” would lead to the barangay council “together with the people in our barangay” going to “where the school is located and we will automatically close the school.”

But a perusal of the relevant section shows that the only provision that can be said to be remotely related to the issue is one that authorizes the barangay chairman to "maintain public order in the barangay and, in pursuance thereof, assist the city or municipal mayor and the sanggunian members in the performance of their duties and functions."

Cabangal said the seven members of the barangay council and the indigenous people’s mandatory representative signed their conformity.

On her part, Maglunsod-Tan acknowledged that the Department of Education in Region 10 is still processing their permit to operate although “we have accomplished all the necessary documentation” and the school has been inspected twice by the schools division in Malaybalay.

She also said she was surprised by Cabugnason’s hostility toward the school, which she said began “only after the Army arrived in August.”

Before, she said, he “was very supportive when we came” because the village has no budget or plans to set up a secondary school.

In fact, she added, Cabugnason “attended all our school activities from the time we opened.”

Kitaotao Mayor Lorenzo Gawilan was “also very happy when we informed him that we planned to set up the school in White Culaman because he admitted they had no budget for additional high schools” in the town, she said.

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/118301/bukidnon-village-chief-orders-tribal-school-to-close-for-npa-ties