File photograph shows presence of elements of the Philippine Army 25th Infantry battalion right inside the school compound of Salugpungan Ta Tanu Igkanogon Community Learning Center situated at Purok 4B, Mangayon, Compostela, Compostela Valley Province. Image derived from a KilabBalita video report.
Reports reaching Manila indicated that a tribal community in Compostela town, Compostela Valley has been living in fear for a week already after elements of the Philippine Army 66th Infantry battalion began patrols around their village.
"We have had to practically neglect our farming plots since the soldiers arrived Saturday last week," Rinda Guindoloy of the Matigsalug community of Purok 4, Barangay Mangayon, told InterAksyon.com by telephone. "We are afraid of what might happen if we meet them on the way."
The soldiers arrived a few days after a series of clashes in Compostela between government forces and the New People's Army, during which human rights groups said some communities had come under artillery fire, killing a small-scale miner and wounding a 14-year old boy. (http://www.interaksyon.com/article/123937/army-accused-of-terror-campaign-in-compostela-valley-as-campaign-season-starts)
The military has since claimed that the boy was a rebel "child warrior" captured in the fighting.
Aside from the recent clashes, Guindoloy said, their fear stems from experience gained from past incidents of harassment and threats by soldiers, including the week-long occupation in 2014 of the elementary school in the community run by the nongovernmental Salugpungan Ta Tanu Igkanugon Community Learning Center. (See video below.)
Guindoloy, an adult, is herself a Grade 7 student, one of more than a hundred pupils who attend the school, and was among those harassed during the 2014 occupation, "when the soldiers told us to stop attending classes."
The military has long openly accused tribal schools, the communities that host them, and the NGOs, including religious organizations, running them of advocating support for communist rebels.
Last year, thousands of indigenous people fled their homes in eastern Mindanao after their villages and schools were occupied by Army troops and military-backed militias, or their leaders and community members killed.
The worst incident was the September 1 murders in Lianga, Surigao del Sur of Emerito Samarca, administrator of the Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development, and Manobo leaders Dionel Campos and Datu Bello Sinzo. The Lianga killings triggered the mass evacuation of up to 4,000 lumad, most of whom remain camped out at the sports center in the provincial capital Tandag City.
When the troops recently arrived in Purok 4, said Guindoloy, "they did not show themselves but camped out around the fringes of the community, moving from place to place each day. But children going to school would catch glimpses of them, and, one time, a group of them cocked their weapons when five boys heading to class passed by."
But, on Saturday, she said, "around 20 of them entered the community and entered the school through its rear fence as the teachers were getting ready to leave for the weekend."
"Their leader asked our teacher, Ma'm Delia, where she hid the rice they claimed to have seen her bring to the village on horseback days before. When Ma'm Delia said she had not brought any rice, he kept on pressing her and asking her to disclose where she had hidden it," Guindoloy shared.
She confirmed that a supply of rice had indeed been delivered to their community for their daycare center but that it was not Teacher Delia who had brought it.
Eventually, she said, the soldiers marched out of their community "but they are still in the vicinity."
Guindoloy said the more than 30 families of Purok 4 worry their food store may run out if they cannot till their farms soon.
Images below extracted from a KilabBalita video report:
Primary school pupils huddled at the Community Learning Center.
School representative engaging soldier in a dialogue, explaining the impropriety of the presence of combatants inside the grounds of a civilian school.
Pupils play in the school grounds, unmindful of the ominous presence of soldiers in the campus.
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/124330/army-presence-perturbs-tribal-community-in-compostela-valley
This article is written from the perspective of Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) human rights front organizations with the intent of discrediting the Philippine military. In fact KilabBalita is affiliated with Kilab Multimedia, am "alternative" regional media group that operates in support of CPP front organizations and CPP objectives.
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