OVER 250 Manobo
tribesmen in Lianga, Surigao del Sur denounced the Catholic Church-backed
International Fact Finding Mission that is currently conducting an
investigation into alleged military abuses against indigenous people, called
lumad, the military said on Thursday.
According to a
statement issued by the Army’s Fourth Infantry Division, the IFFM violated
their “free and prior consent process” which supposedly requires that
non-tribesmen who wish to enter a tribe’s ancestral domain should have the
approval of the tribe concerned.
The military
statement quoted Manobo Datu Ceasar Bat-ao as saying such approval should be
determined according to the tribe’s customary laws and practices.
“They [IFFM]
clearly do not respect our tribe. They cannot just intrude [into] our land and
conduct an unsolicited investigation on our tribal conflict,” the military
quoted Bat-ao as saying.
“We have our
husayan [tribal justice system] which is recognized by the government thru
Republic Act No. 8371 [Indigenous People’s Rights Act of 1997],” he said.
“We are begging
them [IFFM] to let us settle our tribal conflict thru our customary laws and
stop interfering. They are making it worst,” the statement added.
Sources in
Surigao del Norte said Bat-ao was part of a group of Manobo leaders that has
been dunning a mining company in the province for royalties although the mining
firm’s claim covered an area that is supposedly the ancestral domain of the
Mamanwa tribe.
The military
statement also quoted one Datu Nahikyad, also known as Marcos Bocales, who
described himself as a commander of the Bagani Tribal Territorial Forces, which
is the group accused of executing three tribal leaders in Lianga town.
The killing of
Manobo leader Emerito Samarca, head of a tribal school in the village of Diatagon
“Since the
[Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army] entered our land, the
tribal conflict began,” the military statement quoted Datu Nahikyad as saying.
“They have
deceived our people to join the revolutionary movement and killed the ones who
refused to. This have been happening for decades and no one wants to hear our
voice as we cry for justice for all the victims of lumad killings perpetrated
by the NPA.”
http://thestandard.com.ph/news/-main-stories/top-stories/190709/lumad-denounce-probe.html
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