Military assists Lumads in securing padlocked school

From the Philippine News Agency (Oct 28): Military assists Lumads in securing padlocked school

CAMP EVANGELISTA, Cagayan De Oro City – Tribal residents and the military have joined together to secure a school earlier ordered by village officials closed for lack of permit issued by the Department Education (DepEd) in Bukidnon, the military said Wednesday.

Capt. Patrick Martinez, spokesperson of the army’s 4th Infantry Division here, said that the village officials led by village chief Felipe Cabugnason ordered the closure of the Mindanao Interfaith Services Foundation, Inc. (MISFI) early October due to lack of legal documents.

Cabugnason also alleged that the MISFI is being used by the communist New People’s Army (NPA), making the school a “threat to the safety of all the people living in the village of White Kulaman, in Kitaotao, Bukidnon.”

Cabugnason said that aside from operating without a permit issued by the DepEd, the operators of MISFI are also “radicalizing” the children of Lumad.

“Besides, the lumber it used for the construction of the school building have not been paid for,” he said.

Martinez said that the village residents of While Kulaman have been on alert after receiving threats that the NPA are reportedly planning to burn the school.

Col. Jesse Alvarez, Commander of the army’s 403rd Infantry Brigade, said that “the military would thwart any attempt by the NPA to burn down the school by conducting security operations in the area.”

On Monday, a school official from DepEd in Northern Mindanao together with the principal of the White Kulaman Integrated School, an existing public school in the village, inspected the MISFI building to belie reports that the village residents have burned the building.

DepEd officials have assured that schoolchildren who were previously enrolled in the padlocked MISFI would be accepted at the White Kulaman Integrated School, Martinez said.

 

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=2&sid=&nid=2&rid=820521