Fr. Fausto "Pops" Tentorio: a life devoted to the lumad. On Sunday, Bayan Muna said the closure of a lumad school named after the martyred Italian priest is tantamount to murdering him again. PIME PHILIPPINES PHOTO
It is like murdering Fr. Fausto Tentorio again. This is how Bayan Muna Party-list described the shutdown of the Fr. Fausto Tentorio Memorial School in Barangay White Kulaman, Kitaotao, Bukidnon, which caters to the Lumad community. The closure does not only denigrate the memory of the martyred priest who spent 32 years of his life among the indigenous people of Mindanao, but also shows just how irrational the Aquino admnistration is in implementing its Oplan Bayanihan (OPB) counter-insurgency program, said Bayan Muna.
In 2003, Fr. Tentorio had written how he was almost killed by the Bagani Force that planned to ambush him in Kitaotao, where he was scheduled to make a visit.
The Lumads lured the militiamen away from the community and the women women hid the thin Fr. Pops in a cabinet to spare him from the deadly guns of the Bagani. "They told me that these men belong to the group called Bagani, that they come from outside the area, and that their intention was to harm me, specifically by throwing hand grenades at me while I am passing by. This information was not new to me. In fact, I heard it the day before," Fr. Pops wrote in 2003. A few years later, the evil plot would succeed and silence him forever.
The Fr. Fausto Tentorio Memorial School was established in memory of the late Italian missionary and lumad advocate “Pops” Tentorio, who was murdered on October 10, 2011 in Arakan, North Cotabato by suspected members of the military-backed Bagani paramilitary group. They pumped him with 10 bullets from a 9 mm pistol. He was dead on arrival at the Antipas Medical Specialists Hospital in Cotabato.
The shutdown of the school bearing his name this month was implemented by Barangay Captain Felipe Cabugnason, who does not enjoy any mandate to take over schools, particularly privately-operated ones, on the pretext that the school has ties with the New People’s Army (NPA.)
“This is a brazen anachronistic red-tagging tactic made by the military and echoed by local government officials in the pursuit of the government’s already discredited counter-insurgency operations,” said Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate, who hails from Davao City.
“It is a tragedy that the efforts made by some support organizations and the lumads themselves to break free from their marginalization is now being attacked," Rep. Zarate said.
Fr. Tentorio, a staunch environmentalist and anti-large scale mining advocate, was also responsible for the establishment of several lumad schools in in the hinterland areas of North Cotabato, Bukidnon and other Mindanao provinces.
'Children suffer most'
Meanwhile, Senior Deputy Minority Leader Rep. Neri Colmenares also condemned the school’s closure, saying "it is the children who suffer most." The solon said "the right to education of the indigenous peoples, especially in Mindanao, has long been neglected by the government and this is one of the reasons that they are marginalized condition until now.
Colmenares added: "Education is a right. It is laudable that lumad advocates have put up these schools on their own, despite risks and hardships, while the government keeps on cutting corners on the education budget. It is condemnable that the military is determined to keep the lumad children out of school," he added.
Barangay While Culaman is also the site of a Gestapo-like raid on August 27 by the military and the police, when at least 13 Lumads and peasants, including a mother and her 12-year-old son, were illegally arrested.
All 13 have since been released from jail after the Regional Trial Court (RTC) in Bukidnon dropped the trumped-up charges against them for lack of merit.
The two Bayan Muna lawmakers said the continued vilification and red-baiting of the school run by the Mindanao Interfaith Services Foundation, Inc. (MISFI) poses a danger to the teachers, students and other residents.
"It is a grave cause of concern that the village chief himself echoes the military's line. It is dangerous for the students, teachers, and the supporters of this school. We don't want another Lianga Massacre to happen," Zarate said.
He meant the September 1 killings of Emerito Samarca, 54, Executive Director of the Alternative Learning Center for Agriculture and Livelihood Development (Alcadev); Dionel Campos, chair of the Malahutayong Pakigbisog Alang sa Sumusunod (MAPASU), a Lumad organization protesting mining operations, land conversions and plantations and Campos’ cousin, Bello Sinzo.
"The military and their misguided minions should stop the red-baiting of Lumad schools. The accusations by the military that individuals, organizations, and schools have links with the NPA are now being used to justify the spate of Lumad killings by paramilitary units and their military sponsors,” Colmenares concluded.
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/118452/closing-down-fr--tentorio-memorial-school-like-murdering-him-again---bayan-muna
Commie political front group comes to the defense of NPA-influenced school. Bayan Muna (People First) is the main CPP-associated party-list political party with regional/local chapters active nationwide.
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