Gabriela lawmakers see 'money-making' behind lumad relocation plan as AFP nixes troop pullout

From InterAksyon (Oct 7): Gabriela lawmakers see 'money-making' behind lumad relocation plan as AFP nixes troop pullout



A lumad family shares a meal in their tent at the Tandag City sports center. (photo by Erwin Mascarinas, InterAksyon.com)

Activist lawmakers on Wednesday said a proposal to relocate lumad refugees in Surigao del Sur might open up opportunities for “kickbacks” as the military rejected demands to pull out soldiers from indigenous peoples’ communities in Mindanao.

Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman bared a plan to build core shelters for the more than 4,000 mostly Manobo evacuees in Surigao del Sur although the lumad earlier rejected the suggestion, demanding that government troops and militias they accuse of atrocities leave their communities so they can return to their homes and farms.

Some 3,000 lumad fled to Tandag City following 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 Barangay Diatago, Lianga town by the military-backed Magahat militia.

Another 1,000 evacuees also sought refuge at the municipal gym in Marihatag town late last week.

Reacting to Soliman’s proposal, Gabriela Representative Luzviminda Ilagan said: “We see only two reasons why Secretary Dinky Soliman is offering relocation to the lumad evacuees instead of facilitating a peaceful return to their ancestral lands. One is that Soliman is in cahoots with the mining and logging interests that seek to plunder ancestral lands once the lumad have been driven away and; there are kickbacks to be gained in the building of lumad relocation shelters.”

Several lumad organizations have linked the atrocities committed against them as part of efforts to stifle their opposition to the incursion of commercial mining and logging operations in their ancestral lands.  

By suggesting relocation, “Secretary Soliman simply refuses to understand and see the reasons behind the lumad’s displacement,” Ilagan said.

Fellow Gabriela lawmaker Emmi De Jesus said Soliman should not be trusted with the project, citing “how families displaced by Typhoon Yolanda have been relegated to sub-human conditions in shelters facilitated no less by the DSWD.”

“Malinaw na kickback na naman at pondong pangkampanya ang hinahabol ni Soliman dito at nakalulungkot isipin na pagkakakitaan na naman ng ahensyang ito ang mga biktima (It is clear that Soliman is after kickbacks and campaign funds and it is sad to think this agency will again reap profots from the plight of the victims),” she claimed.

“They have been forced to evacuate several times and they have been victimized several times. We must heed their calls and not allow the lumad to be victimized over again,” De Jesus said.

But in Camp Aguinaldo, Armed Forces of the Philippines Civil Relations Service chief Brigadier General Joselito Kakilala reiterated military claims that communist rebels were “radicalizing” lumad children through tribal schools set up in their communities by nongovernmental organizations.

Among the schools the military has accused of advocating support for communist rebels and wants shut down is ALCADEV, which has received awards for its groundbreaking work from the Department of Education, among others.

“The NPA should leave all lumad communities and they should stop making these communities their own laboratories of senseless protracted war. They should stop arming the lumad to wage a bloody war with them against the government,” Kakilala said.  

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/118587/gabriela-lawmakers-see-money-making-behind-lumad-relocation-plan-as-afp-nixes-troop-pullout