Warm welcome from students of St. Scholastica's College. Photograph from Bayan-NCR.
The Manilakbayan caravan arrived in Manila to drum up wider public awareness of the plight of lumad communities in Mindanao.
The route from Cagayan de Oro City took the caravan across Eastern Visayas, the Bicol Region, and Southern Tagalog, until it reached Manila on Monday.
From Baclaran Church where they stopped to rest on October 25, the protesters proceeded down Taft Avenue and Liwasang Bonifacio to meet up with the contingent organized by the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan.
(Above) Students of De La salle University and its sister school, College of Saint Benilde, in a rousing welcome as the caravan makes its way along Taft Avenue.
(Below) Michelle Campos, daughter of a lumad killed in the spate of violence, is greeted by students of UP Manila campus. Photographs from Bayan-NCR.
As they denounced the spate of killings of lumad leaders and a regime of harassment in lumad schools, leaders of the caravan claimed that the administration of President Aquino should be held directly accountable for the deployment of an estimated 125,000 paramilitary Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Unit (CAFGUs) to disrupt the operation of lumad schools or tear them down outright.
In his speech during a rally held at historic Mendiola Bridge in Manila, Rius Valle of Save Our Schools underscored that the government of Aquino has a direct hand in closing of schools.
Valle said that, in the Northern Mindanao Region, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), apparently with the tacit approval of the Aquino administration, has deployed scores of thousands of CAFGU and militia in the area.
Near the University of the Philippines campus in Manila (above), the caravan was warmly greeted with a Salubungan – a meet up – at the shrine of Andres Bonifacio across from Manila City Hall.
After a solidarity lunch, the group proceeded to Mendiola for a rally and brief program.
From there, it was onward to the Diliman campus of the University of the Philippines in Quezon City, to spend five days at protest camps hosted by various groups of the university.
Photograph below of UP Diliman welcome by Obet de Castro.
(Below, far right) UP Diliman Chancellor Michael Tan, PhD, presides over the conferment of a sablay sash on a lumad youngster. Photographed by Vencer Crisostomo.
(Above) The UP varsity basketball team Fighting Maroons spend some quality bonding time with the lumad kids. Photograph from the UP Collegian.
Photographs below, at UP Diliman, by Bernard Testa, InterAksyon.com:
The Kabataan Party-list led various youth and student groups in welcoming the "Manilakbayan" delegation to Manila, echoing the call that the repression of Lumad communities in Mindanao must stop.
Kabataan partylist Representative Terry Ridon said the "lakbayanis" journeyed from Mindanao all the way to Manila to bring the plight of the Lumad and the people of Mindanao to the attention of the national government, "which has – for the large part – acted deaf and mute on the spate of Lumad killings."
Due to the government's failure to address the demands for justice and an end to the militarization of their communities, various Lumad groups and other human rights sectors from Mindanao felt compelled to launch the so-called Manilakbayan Caravan on October 19.
Valle revealed that, ironically, many of these militia members and paramilitary operatives are being prompted to "teach" in the lumad schools that they are seeking to disrupt, apparently with the Department of Education providing training, in some 35 pilot villages in the Northern Mindanao Region.
The attacks on the schools are happening without letup, Valle said further, even as he claimed the government doesn't seem to be lifting a finger to arrest the continuing spiral of impunity in the lumad hinterlands.
Just two days ago, Valle revealed, a Lumad school was forcibly closed by the barangay captain in Kitaotao, Bukidnon, allegedly in coordination with the regional office of the Department of Education (DepEd).
"The perimeter fence was destroyed, the classrooms locked up, and the students threatened that the school will be torn down even if the pupils stayed on," Valle said. "This seems to be a government that pays no mind to what's going on, to the harassment that the lumad youth are being subjected to."
Valle said that a certain Josephine Padol of DepEd ordered the closure of the school on grounds that it was being run by rebels, that it was a rebel school.
Quoting Padol, Valle said, the closed school is to be replaced by an public building to be built by DepEd, and soldiers will be teach the Lumads, instead of by mentors from the education department.
Valle disclosed that from September 2014 to 2015, Save Our School tallied 95 cases of attacks on Lumad schools.
"We call on all youth and students to join us as we host the Lumad and the people of Mindanao, who have traveled all the way to Manila to cry justice and call for the immediate pull-out of military troops in their ancestral domain. Together, let us stand with our Lumad brothers and sisters to stop the killings," Representative Ridon concluded.
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/119467/manilakbayan-caravan--afp-has-125000-cafgu-for-quelling-lumad-schools
More CPP front group agitation-propaganda activity as the "Manilakbayan caravan" continues. Groups highlighted above --Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN-New Patriotic Alliance), Save Our Schools (SOS) movement, and Kabataan (Youth) Party-list -- are CPP front organizations.
ReplyDeleteThe intent of the activity is to discredit the Aquino administration, the Philippine military, and the Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Units (CAFGU) on the issue of human rights violations targeting lumad groups.
These front organizations seek to foster the perception that there has been widespread government/military persecution of lumad communities and that the lumad have extensive support from a wide variety of Filipino grassroots organizations (most of which are CPP front groups).