Some South Auckland locals are hitting back at online hate directed at the area and its Pasifika community, after a local family was the first to test positive for covid-19 in the current New Zealand outbreak.

Four positive cases ballooned to a 58-case cluster after 102 days of no community transmission.

Auckland City’s Manukau Ward councillor Alf Filipaina was disgusted by the unfair vitriol directed towards South Auckland and it’s Pacific community.

• READ MORE: Barbara Dreaver: Should we identify the first covid family as Pasifika? Yes, we should, and here’s why
• Guam confirms 42 new cases of covid-19

“Everybody knows this virus doesn’t pick on colour. Because we’re in the lower socio-economic area and we have bigger families, it actually goes through the whole family very quickly,” he said.

Aside from the threat of the virus, Filipaina said job security was a concern for people in the area.

“Some have said, ‘look, we don’t know – even though [the level 3 lock down] is until [August] 26 – whether we’ll have a job to go back to,” he said.

“That’s not a very good feeling.”

Negativity not representative
Otahuhu College principal Neil Watson did not think those spreading negativity online represented most people.

“The South Auckland and the Pasifika community here is a fantastically strong and powerful community with so much future,” he said.

“I think what you see on social media is always a small minority of people. What you see everyday in school and in our community is a fantastic community doing the very best to support and help each other.”

Bill Peace, operations manager for social service Strive Community Trust, said people now know what to expect from level 3.

There was a rush to grocery stores when the latest lockdown was first announced.

But now, he said, people are feeling much calmer compared to the last lockdown.

“If there’s any long line its actually [for] the covid testing, that’s gone crazy.”

Peace called the online hate disappointing, but said he isn’t letting it get to him.

“We just think positive in that space. It’s our hood we’re talking about. We’re here from day one and we’ll continue to support our communities, regardless of what people are saying about them,” he said.

Testing centres in Ōtara and Mangere have been seeing a steady stream of visitors, with each centre handling around 500 to 600 tests a day each.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

• All RNZ coverage of covid-19
• If you have symptoms of the coronavirus, call the NZ Covid-19 Healthline on 0800 358 5453 (+64 9 358 5453 for international SIMs) or call your GP – don’t show up at a medical centre.

An alarming number of “targeted” journalists being killed and West Papua media for independence were just some of the topics covered in a wide-ranging seminar by the director of the Pacific Media Centre last night.

Professor David Robie called for the media, universities and journalism schools to take their Pacific “backyard” more seriously and not just wait for crises to happen.

The seminar was in marking May 3 – World Press Freedom Day. This year’s conference is in Accra, Ghana.

READ MORE: Free media week killings underscore crimes of impunity against journalists

Dr Robie cited the number of journalists killed while working in 2017 and called journalism an increasingly “dangerous occupation”.

“Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) [Reporters Without Borders] statistics showed 65 journalists were killed worldwide in 2017,” Dr Robie said. Of the 65 journalists killed, 7 of these people were so-called citizen journalists.

This number of casualties varied between media freedom monitoring agencies depending on the definitions of journalists and media workers counted in the statistics, he said.

Although this statistic showed a drop from the previous year, the growth of “hatred” for media and targeting of journalists was a worsening problem.

“This is a dire situation that is getting worse.” 

On top of the killings, the Paris-based statistics showed that 326 journalists were detained in prison and a further 54 were being held hostage. 

Dr Robie said use of the term “citizen journalist” was problematic, as it gave an impression of untrained journalists working without an ethical basis. In fact, many professional journalists were becoming “citizen” journalists tactically and using social media to defeat mainstream media “gags” such as relating to the Melanesian region West Papua inside Indonesia.

“There are more and more independent journalists that are disillusioned” and publishing untold stories on their own blogs.

One such journalist is Papua New Guinea’s Scott Waide, with whom Pacific Media Centre is collaborating with, published many articles by independent journalists and civil society people on his blog My Land, My Country.

Dr Robie also talked about the latest RSF Press Freedom Index and its findings on the Asia-Pacific region.

A Filipino radio journalist, Edmond Sestoso, was shot last Monday – three days before Press Freedom Day – and died the next day. He was murdered in a drive-by scenario by a gunman on a motorcycle. According to Dr Robie, it is a “very common way of doing it” in the Philippines.

World Press Freedom Day 2017
In 2017, Dr Robie was invited to go to the week-long UNESCO World Press Freedom Day media conference in Jakarta, Indonesia.

He was one of just two New Zealanders at the conference out of the 1500 people attending the WPFD conference. He spoke at a journalist safety academic conference at WPFD but was also a guest keynote speaker at an alternative “Free Press in West Papua” conference organised by Indonesia’s Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI).

Dr Robie said it was “astonishing” that there were not more people from New Zealand present at WPFD and said it showed how “appalling” New Zealand’s interest in international affairs was with an information gap in coverage of Asia-Pacific issues. The other New Zealander present was Mary Major, executive director of the New Zealand Media Council.

Dr Robie described the week as “challenging” and “inspiring”.

“I was representing AUT university and also entering a fraught situation.”

Independent Indonesian journalists were planning to protest against the treatment of West Papua and make a showcase stand before the world’s press, said Dr Robie.

At the WPFD, there was a tight military and police security cordon which kept out West Papua protesters and prevented conference participants from joining the protests in solidarity.

While en route to Jakarta, Dr Robie was also invited to speak at a conference hosted by the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism, the last investigative journalism unit at an Australian university. This was closing under protest after 25 years on the “frontline”.

He was able to address West Papua issues there too.

“I’m an educator and a journalist … I have a responsibility to share my knowledge with as many people as I can about issues,” said Dr Robie, who is author of Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, mayhem and human rights in the Pacific.

West Papua plight ‘censored’

Dr Robie discussed Facebook recently wrongly “censoring” a 1995 photo of an armed West Papuan OPM guerilla and fellow tribespeople in traditional nambas (penis sheaths), pointing to the Pacific Media Centre coverage that sparked an RNZ Mediawatch story on the issue.

Photojournalist Ben Bohane, who has extensively covered conflict issues in the Asia-Pacific region, wrote a two-page article in the Vanuatu Daily Post in response to a piece about China and Vanuatu by The Sydney Morning Herald that had speculated about a “naval base” plan for a wharf aid project at Luganville, Espiritu Santo. Dr Robie said the Australian article was  “scaremongering.”

“Ben Bohane’s article argued China was not the real concern,” he said. “The real threat in terms of stability and security is Indonesia, for which New Zealand media have a blindspot.”

When the PMC republished the Bohane article on its current affairs website Asia Pacific Report, Facebook links were removed. “I got a message saying the picture breached Facebook’s community standards.” While the Facebook “block” did not affect the actual article itself, Dr Robie said it limited the reach of an important article.

Dr Robie said he believed the photo censorship had more to do with “politics” rather than “nudity” and was undoubtedly an attempt by Indonesian sources to curb the debate regarding West Papua.

“It is not the picture that is the real issue,” said Dr Robie. He quoted from Ben Bohane’s latest message saying the censorship was ongoing in spite of Facebook saying it had lifted the block.

It is not the first time Facebook has censored an iconic photo that illustrates dire situations in the Asia-Pacific region. Dr Robie pointed to how Mediawatch raised the issue of how the social media platform in 2016 censored images of the “napalm girl” taken during the Vietnam War in 1973. This caused an international storm of protest.

WPFD in Indonesia – an irony
Dr Robie pointed out the irony over Jakarta hosting the WPFD 2017 conference in light of censorship and repressive activities by security forces in West Papua.

According to Dr Robie, Indonesia has a vibrant “plurality” of voices but forces were seeking to radicalise people, along with targeting journalists.

While President Joko Widodo had changed policy in 2015 to “allow foreign journalists into” West Papua after he was elected in 2014, not much had really changed. Arrests and deportations were continuing.

“It’s very tightly controlled by the bureaucracy and security authorities,” said Dr Robie.

He highlighted the message from critics and researchers of a “secret genocide” in West Papua.

“The state of mainstream international media is a big part of how West Papua is ignored. There is a big difference when you watch some news media that take a more independent stance, such as Al Jazeera.”

He praised Al Jazeera’s Dutch journalist in Jakarta, Step Vaessen, for her coverage.

The penalties for showing support for West Papuan independence is severe – a 15-year prison sentence if you raise the banned Morning Star independence flag – even wearing a t-shirt like I am wearing tonight with the flag on can get you into trouble,” Dr Robie said.

“It is a very serious situation for West Papuans.”

“They believe their independence was declared in 1962 and despite that, Indonesian forces invaded.

“Western countries have become persuaded that West Papua has become part of Indonesia, making the situation a wrong that has never been righted.”

NZ media coverage
While the situation is still dire, there has been some sporadic New Zealand coverage of the West Papua situation, said Dr Robie.

New Zealander Karen Abplanalp, who researched journalist access into West Papua for her masters degree, assisted Māori Television in a reporting mission with Adrian Stevanon to West Papua in 2015. The crew had to “dress” up the assignment bid with the authorities by saying it was a cultural showcase and had a nice side report about a kumara aid project in the Highlands.

Johnny Blades and Koroi Hawkins from RNZ also visited West Papua that year and did a rare interview with Lukas Enembe, the governor of Papua.

Dr Robie said New Zealand media covered disasters, coups and cyclones, while ignoring many of the social justice and development stories that were “crying out to be covered” in the Asia-Pacific region.

“Universities have responsibilities to shed light through research,” concluded Dr Robie.

He called for Indonesia to genuinely “open the door” to journalists and non-government agencies to visit West Papua, and for a “real” UN referendum on self-determination for the Papuans.

Peace and human rights activist Maire Leadbeater said the presentation was enlightening and covered many topics.

“It was great, I really enjoyed it. Dr Robie covered a lot of bases,” Leadbeater said.

Leadbeater is due to have a book published next month about the issue, See No Evil: New Zealand’s betrayal of the people of West Papua.

“The book will be a probe into New Zealand’s diplomacy that hasn’t been done before.”

• Charges of ‘censorship’ at UNESCO WPFD event 2018

Detained Australian missionary Sister Patricia “Pat” Fox’s “release” by the Philippines Bureau of Immigration has been greeted with relief by human rights advocates

Peter Murphy, chair of the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP), told Pacific Media Watch today it was a “great relief” that Sister Pat had been released by the Philippines Bureau of Immigration on Tuesday.

According to a media release by ICHRP, 71-year-old Fox is a member of the Catholic congregation Sisters of Our lady of Sion, an Australian citizen who holds a missionary visa to work in the Philippines, where she has worked since 1991.

She now works with the Union of Agricultural Workers (UMA) and Alliance for Genuine Agrarian Reform (PATRIA), and is a past national coordinator of Rural Missionaries of the Philippines.

Murphy said he read in Philippines news media that Sister Fox had been due to be imprisoned in Taguig in the city of Manila but authorities thought it would be too harsh for her.

“So they let her sleep on an office bench in the Bureau of Immigration and she had some company,” said Murphy.

Murphy said while the Bureau of Immigration had released Fox, it was holding her passport while continuing to investigate her.

“They say the reason for releasing her is that when the Bureau of Immigration officers met her, she wasn’t breaking any laws.”

‘Megalomaniac statement’
“They met her in her house so it was a sort of face saving statement.”

“They aren’t going to proceed with the political charges they started with I think because there was such a big outcry from Australia, church and human rights groups in the Philippines.”

“Yesterday evening [President Rodrigo] Duterte said it was he who [had] personally ordered her detention. He said he had the power to do this and decide who was a suitable foreigner to be in the country and who wasn’t, which is sort of a megalomaniac statement.”

Murphy said he believed the president did not have this power but “it shows the attitude and how vindictive he can be when he is as arrogant and authoritarian as he is”.

“After Sister Fox was arrested, Duterte announced that if the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court came to investigate him, they would also be deported.”

The week before, Murphy said another priest tried to enter on a similar mission to Fox and he was deported.

“It’s part of a significant escalation of attempts to shut down outsiders making comments.”

Duterte’s ‘terrorist list’
Murphy said that Duterte had an increasing number on his list of alleged terrorists, including the expert at the UN for indigenous peoples’ rights.

Filipino Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, visited Australia recently and made some damning statements about the treatment of indigenous peoples under Dutuerte, said Murphy.

“Duterte has put her name under the list of about 400 people who he is alleging are terrorists and should be arrested

“It’s another case of him trying to shut up an international voice that’s critical of him.”

Murphy believes Duterte’s actions are part of a plan to seize greater control over the Philippines.

“I think what’s going on behind that as a strategy is to separate out the international networks that are supportive of trade unions, farmers organisations women’s groups, fisher folk…all of these people’s organisations in the Philippines have their international connections so he’s trying to put a barrier between the two and so have a freer hand to engage in more repression,” said Murphy.

‘No national boundaries’
In response to Durterte’s comments that Fox should criticise her own government instead of the Philippines, Murphy doesn’t think Fox has held back from condemning the Australian government.

“I don’t think Fox has had any inhibitions about criticising the Australian government either.

“For Fox, I don’t think there’s any national boundaries to divide up whose rights you should defend and whose rights you shouldn’t,” said Murphy.

“Human rights are codified to some extent in the International Declaration of Human Rights in which the Philippines is a signatory

“President Duterte can’t say anyone else in the world outside of his borders is not entitled to comment on what’s happening to Human Rights in the Philippines.”

Rappler reports the Bureau of Immigration released Fox on Tuesday after keeping her in detention for almost a day. She was released because the bureau found she had a valid missionary visa and because she was not violating immigration laws.

Duterte personally responsible
President Rodrigo Duterte took “full responsibility” for the temporary detention of Australian missionary nun Sister Patricia Fox, admitting he had ordered the bureau to investigate her.

Duterte said he ordered only an investigation into Fox’s “disorderly conduct,” not her detention.

Fox is expected to undergo preliminary investigation to determine if she is to be deported.

According to Rappler, the bureau had said that Fox was accused of “engaging in political activities and anti-government demonstrations”.

Fox said she had been active in standing up for human rights issues because of her religious beliefs, not because of any political leanings.

“I haven’t joined political rallies in terms of party politics, but I have been active in human rights issues,” the nun said.

• More Philippine stories

Bearing Witness climate change project students won big last night at the annual awards ceremony for AUT’s School of Communication Studies last night.

Julie Cleaver and Kendal Hutt took out the Spasifik Magazine Prize and Pacific Media Centre Storyboard Award for Diversity Reporting for their work on the Bearing Witness climate change project last year.

Hele Ikimotu was awarded the John Foy Memorial Award for broadcast journalism and will be flying to Fiji tomorrow to continue the Bearing Witness climate change project this year.

READ MORE: Bearing Witness climate project stories

‘Great honour’
Cleaver and Hutt both travelled to Fiji last year where they created a multimedia feature on the Fijian village of Tukuraki, which was hit by a deadly landslide and two cyclones in the space of five years.

The project also won the Dart Asia-Pacific Prize for Journalism and Trauma at the annual Ossie Awards for Student Journalism at Newcastle, NSW, last December.

Cleaver is now editor of Debate Magazine and Hutt is a reporter with the North Shore Times.

Hutt said it was a great honour to receive this award.

“This award is not just our award, it is also Tukuraki’s award for letting us come up to the community and let us tell their story. I think it had only been told in Fijian media and ABC Australia,” said Hutt.

‘Journalism highlight’
Cleaver said her time in Fiji was a moving experience. “It was a privilege to be a journalist and hear these people’s stories. When else would you get to hear these people’s personal testimonies from someone who has been through so much as well.”

“The Pacific Media Centre has been so supportive to both of us throughout this process. Thanks so much to Professor David Robie and everyone else involved,” said Cleaver.

“The trip was a journalism highlight. This is why I wanted to get into journalism.”

“It’s so awesome that Dr Robie is driving this PMC project. It needs someone passionate to keep it going and it’s such a privilege to be a part of that.”

Ikimotu ‘excited’
Bearing Witness climate change project participant Hele Ikimotu received the John Foy Memorial Award.

Louise Matthews, curriculum leader of AUT’s journalism programme, presented the award to Ikimotu and said he “aced” his undergraduate courses and stayed on to do postgraduate study this year.

Ikimotu thanked God, the John Foy Memorial Trust sponsors and his “supportive and inspiring” journalism tutors in his acceptance speech.

“I’m so excited and nervous to go over there. I come from an ancestry of storytellers. There are times I doubted I had the ability to be a good storyteller but this award has affirmed I have what it takes, and I’m so excited to see where journalism takes me.

“I’m so excited to use it as a platform for my people and continue being a voice for the Pacific. I was born in the Islands and I know my family back home are proud that I’m doing it and representing them.”

Ikimotu leaves for Fiji tomorrow with fellow participant Blessen Tom to carry on this year’s version of the Bearing Witness project.

Ikimotu and Tom will be heading on a two-week climate change mission to the main island of Viti Levu where they will be interviewing local people who are directly affected by the devastating effects of climate change in the Pacific.

Ikimotu and Tom will be searching for stories, interviewing people directly affected by climate change and reporting directly for Asia Pacific Report, Wansolwara and other media.

• Wansolwara report on the climate change project in Fiji
• Tukuraki disaster village multimedia report

Full 2017 School of Communication Studies awards:
School of Communication Studies Award for Top Student in the Certificate in Communication Studies: Schumacher Liuvaie

School of Communication Studies Award for Top Year One Bachelor of Communication Studies: Amy Wang

School of Communication Studies Award for Top Year Two Bachelor of Communication Studies: Jamie Ensor

School of Communication Studies Award for Excellence in Communication Theory: Adam Szentes

Communication Studies Postgraduate Scholarships: India Fremaux, Yulia Khan, Malini Radkrishna, Jayakrishnan Sreekumar

Dean’s Award for Best Postgraduate Diploma in Communication Studies: Elizabeth Osborne

Dean’s Award for Excellence in Master of Communication Studies – Thesis: Ximena Smith

Oceania Media’s Spasifik Magazine Prize and the Pacific Media Centre’s Storyboard Award for Diversity Reporting: Julie Cleaver and Kendall Hutt

The Radio Bureau Award for Top of Research Project: Radio: Georgina Cain-Treleaven

The Radio Bureau Award for Top Radio Student: Maxene London

John Foy Memorial Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism: Hele Ikimotu

Bauer Award for Excellence in Magazine Journalism: Nicole Barratt

New Zealand Herald Award for Top Post Graduate Diploma Student in Creative Practice – Journalism: Arun Jeram

National Business Review Award for the Outstanding Graduate in the BCS Journalism Major: Nicole Barratt

New Zealand Geographic award for Excellence in Photojournalism: Adam Szentes

Public Relations Institute of New Zealand Award for the Top Year 2 Public Relations Student: Jamie Ensor

The winners of the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand Paul Dryden Tertiary Award 2017: Boyan Buha, Jodealyn Cadacio, Simon Cooper, and Georgia Ward

Highly Commended Public Relations Institute of New Zealand Paul Dryden Tertiary Award 2017: Abby Berry, Emma Hilton, Morgan MacFadyen

Public Relations Institute of New Zealand President’s Award for the Top Academic Student in the Public Relations Major: Adam Szentes

The Postgraduate Public Relations Global Virtual Team Winner (2017): Alex Ubels

FCB Change Agency Award for Digital Media Excellence: Stefanee Chua

School of Communication Studies joint Award for Academic Excellence in the Creative Industries Major: Kaylah Burke and Laura Reid

QMS Awards for Advertising Creativity:
QMS Art Director of the Year – Holly Smith
QMS Account Executive of the Year – Ella Bilham
QMS Team of the Year – Will Macdonald and Adam Ramsdale

Francis Porterfield Memorial Award for Excellence in Multicamera Production: Steven Yee

MediaWorks Award for Best Producer: McKay Carroll

Two postgraduate students on the Pacific Media Centre’s Bearing Witness climate change project are due to jet to Fiji this weekend.

Journalism student Hele Ikimotu and screen production student Blessen Tom will be heading on a two-week climate change mission to the main island of Viti Levu where they will be interviewing local people who are directly affected by the devastating effects of climate change in the Pacific.

Ikimotu and Tom will be searching for stories, interviewing people affected by climate change and reporting for Asia Pacific Report and other media.

Using the University of the South Pacific as a base, the two students will work closely with the USP journalism programme newspaper Wansolwara. They will also be working with the Pacific Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD).

Both Ikimotu and Tom bear a close connection to the impact climate change is wreaking on the Pacific region and wider world.

Ikimotu is from Kiribati and his passion for the Bearing Witness project is drawn from his close connection to the Pacific region.

Ikimotu said: “Kiribati is one of the most affected countries by climate change and climate change issues. I have a special connection to the issues these communities are going through because it’s my family that’s being affected.

‘Genuine passion’
“I wanted to be a part of this project as I have a genuine passion for climate change and climate change issues.”

Likewise, Tom has a strong link to the consequences of climate change due to the impact it is having on his family’s agriculture business in his homeland of India.

Tom said: “For me, climate change is a very personal subject. I come from a family who for generations has depended on agriculture as our main income.

“This project is really important to me because just like in my country, people in the Pacific Islands are really suffering.

“Climate change real for us. We experience it in a really bad way right now, when you think about our income from agriculture, we can’t survive on it.”

Both Ikimotu and Tom bear a strong commitment to sharing the stories of the Pacific peoples, which they say are not being covered adequately by mainstream media.

Ikimotu said: “I feel that mainstream media aren’t doing enough to report on climate change.

Local stories
“I think a project like ‘bearing witness’ gives a platform for climate change to be reported on genuinely and passionately, and give opportunities to locals to tell their story.”

“The Bearing Witness project gives us the opportunity to share that with a wider audience, both in the Pacific in and New Zealand.”

“Rather than just talking about the need for change, I want to be a part of that change,” said Ikimotu.

Tom also highlights the unclear way mainstream media reports on climate change.

Tom said: “Mainstream media gives a lot of statistics and details that people don’t understand. So bearing witness is a stage where we can tell stories in a really creative way, so people will be interested in climate change and then they can act against these things we do to nature.”

Ikimotu said: “Bearing Witness is a great opportunity for us as journalists to be at the forefront of climate change and to see first hand what these communities are going through, and hopefully spark a discussion around what needs to be done to tackle the issue.

“It also emphasises the need for journalists to be reporting on climate change.”

Partners praised
PMC director Professor David Robie, who initiated the project in 2015, praised the support from the partners, USP Journalism, PaCE-SD and AUT’s Te Ara Motuhenga documentary collective.

“They have helped make this experiential journalism and doco-making project possible and we hope it will grow in future years.

“Last year, our Bearing Witness team students won the Dart Journalism Award for trauma journalism, so it is a tremendous creative and learning opportunity facing one of the world’s most urgent challenges.”

• More Bearing Witness project stories
• Bearing Witness project up close

Volunteer teachers are being maliciously labelled as “terrorists” by the Philippine government while paramilitary and mining activity increases in the country, say visiting indigenous Lumad education advocates.

Fritizi Junance Magbanua, a volunteer teacher and administrator with the Save Our Schools network, says teachers, schools and communities of indigenous peoples are being targeted and labelled as terrorists by the government.

The Save Our Schools network is a collection of 215 community based schools that operate throughout the southern Mindanao island region in the Philippines.

VIEW MORE IMAGES: Lumad campaigners appeal for NZ support to defend schools

The network is part of community groups and advocates that fight for indigenous peoples rights to “defend their land, right to education, right to self-determination,” said Lorena Sigua at a public meeting in Auckland’s Peace Place last night.

She is a volunteer at Education Development Institute (EDI) curriculum development based in Mindanao.

Auckland Philippines Solidarity, a group sponsoring the visit of the Lumads to New Zealand,  also launched an “open letter” to the Philippine government at the meeting, supporting a campaign by human rights defenders for the indigenous schools.

The letter called on the Philippine government to immediately scrap the “baseless, malicious and arbitrary terrorist listing of community activists”.

Magbanua said: “Save Our Schools has documented 89 harassments of our schools, 18 military activities inside our school vicinity, 27 schools forcibly shut down because of the intensifying military presence in our area.”

This does not just apply to school teachers. “The environmental activists, human rights activists are also being targeted and tagged as terrorists,” said Sigua.

The indigenous people, known collectively as Lumads, are the main people suffering. “Our indigenous peoples in the Philippines are now being attacked by our government,” said Magbanua.

“Mostly those who are killed are our parents and our tribal leaders who constructed the schools.”

Mining behind military threat
The threat of paramilitary and government military activity is part of the government’s move to allow mining by multinational corporations in the area.

“The southern Mindanao is blessed with a lot of resources. It is the mining capital of Philippines. As you know, big businesses are coming over to take advantage of that,” Sigua said.

“Ironically, we are the poorest region but it is the mining capital,” said Magbanua.

“When mining is in our area, the first step our government will do is deploy their troops to give way to the mining equipment. They harass people to vacate their land.”

It can also turn violent. “One of our supporters was killed a couple of weeks ago by a paramilitary group.”

Magbanua pointed to the actions of President Rodrigo Durterte which she said were encouraging the violence.

“In the first six months that President Durterte was elected, we were hopeful for a change… he says he was a socialist, and a leftist, a pro-Lumad, and anti-mining.”

‘Changed his tune’
But in November 2017 when the APEC summit took place in Manila and President Trump visited the Philippines, Duterte seemed to change his mind.

“After the visit of Trump, he changed his tune. He welcomed all the investors to extract our natural resources. So he’s a puppet,” said Magbanua.

Sigua said: “The educators in Mindanao are being targeted as terrorists.

“The indigenous peoples are now being empowered and educated because of the schools. If they are empowered, they know their rights.”

Magbanua said: “Duterte was the one who says he would bomb our schools… Under his regime, 37 Lumads have been extra-judicially killed under martial law.”

Sigua said: “There is massive militarisation in the in area. Students are evacuating, the community is evacuating.”

“There is now militarisation in the indigenous communities,” she said. This was a reaction against the fear and tension caused by other military forces in the area.

‘Land is life’
Land is often at the center of the conflicts. “We believe that land is life,” says Magbanua.

“We, the indigenous people, need to protect it from mining and multinational corporations. We have to defend this for the next generation.

“We get all our needs from the mountains. From our medicines, our foods it is our supermarket and hospital.

“We call our land the land of promise. The greedy people want to take it away from us and convert it into banana plantations and mining areas.”

After getting her university degree, Fritzi Junance Magbanua committed herself to serving indigenous people.

“For six years now I’ve been teaching and monitoring my co-teachers, facilitating the training, and doing some psychosocial therapy with my students.”

Magbanua has never thought about doing anything different than being a volunteer teacher.

‘Indigenous need me’
“After I graduated, a lot of opportunities came my way but I turned them down. Somebody needs me and it is the indigenous people.”

“It is my commitment and responsibility to be with them and serve them without anything in return.”

A turning point for her was her personal connection to the Lumad’s struggle. “By blood I am also a Lumad. I see their plight, their hunger for education. When I have this knowledge, I just want to help and educate them also.”

I am a part of their struggle to defend their land. Their plight at Mindanao is to uphold their right to self-determination.”

Lorena Sigua is from Manila. She is a graduate of the the University of the Philippines and currently is a volunteer at the Education Development Institute (EDI) curriculum development based in Mindanao.

Sigua was inspired to get involved with Save Our Schools after witnessing the Lakbayan march, where indigenous peoples were protesting about their concerns.

Challenging life
Life as a volunteer teacher in Mindanao is challenging, said Magbanua.

“Once you are a volunteer, you are not just a teacher. You are a counsellor too. The community respects us and sees us as their hero because no body cares. Especially the government in our communities, but only us teachers and the institutions we came from.

Being a teacher for the indigenous peoples has a lot of sacrifices. We are not salary based. We receive NZ$100 a month.

The teachers often must travel to remote locations to reach local communities. “We are deployed in far flung areas.”

The furtherest place the network serves requires a two-day walk through a snaking path to travel to. “We cross one river 52 times. But it’s just a little sacrifice. For us we are ready to commit ourselves to the less fortunate who are hungry for education.”

The organisation demands no payment for their work. “Our education is free for all. We don’t ask for anything in return. In fact, we provide school supplies, toiletries to continue and sustain their education.

“On our island in Mindanao, there is no electricity, no signal. You have to walk an hour to search for a signal. You literally have to climb up a tree just to search for the signal.”

Asia-Pacific consultation
Kevin McBride, national co-ordinator of Pax Christi Aotearoa, hosted the talk.

“I had expectations it would be a good revelation of the situation in Mindanao of the Lumad people,” said McBride.

In December 2017, McBride represented Pax Christi in attending an Asia-Pacific Consultation in the Philippines.

With the New Zealand government being in touch with President Duterte, McBride believes New Zealand should try to do more to help.

“We do have opportunities to raise these issues and hold them to account for their activities. Shamefully, too often we don’t as it would affect our trade.”

Appeal for help
Every year the indigenous peoples go to the capital region in the Philippines to rally and send a message to the government about their concerns.

It is called a Lakbayan, said Sigua, and it was similar to the Hikoi taken by indigenous Māori in New Zealand.

“We are sharing a struggle with Māori,” said Magbanau.

“We are appealing to your government to support our calls to stop the attacks on the activists. The activists in the Philippines are being tagged as terrorists.”

Jean Bell is contributing editor of the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch freedom project. Additional reporting by Rahul Bhattarai who is an Auckland University of Technology student working towards a postgraduate diploma in Journalism.

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This cohort, formed in the 1960s and dubbed by the researcher as the “Transnational Nuclear Assemblage”, includes government and business institutions that produce ruling texts on radiation protection that determine safe levels.

A core idea was that of narrative and approach to issues, especially relating to different “realities”, said Karly Burch, a doctoral candidate at the University of Otago who was speaking at a public seminar hosted by AUT’s Pacific Media Centre.

The seminar focused on the governance of “safe food” after the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant explosions in the wake of the 9.1 magnitude Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011.

“Multiple realities are possible, but sometimes the ruling elite wants to enact a certain reality and we are convinced there is only one way to do things but in fact there may be many.”

The anniversary of the disaster was last Sunday.

Burch moved to Japan in 2008 and lived in the Kansai region. After two years, she moved to Europe to do her masters degree research in agroecology. At the time of the disaster, she was in Austria and she returned to Japan.

Radiation discourse
Her research “questions how the Japanese government and agricultural industry encourage people to eat food that possibly contain TEPCO’s radionuclides, and how this works”.

Radionuclides are unstable isotopes that release particles to reach a more stable state, Burch said.

Ionising radiation is the most concerning radiation as it can damage cells. These radionuclides cannot be sensed by humans and radiation machines are required to identify objects or food with radionuclides.

When thinking about institutional ethnography and tracing ruling discourses, Burch began to consider how the ruling discourses and the language used to discuss radiation emerged.

She also took into account how discussion around safe food is “contained” within these ruling discourses, and “how do we all participate within that containment”.

Burch used institutional ethnography as a way to trace how discourse, documents or media link everyday people to this attempt to rule and coordinate the way people consume and think about food safety.

Burch also borrowed theory relating to material semiotics from science and technology studies.

‘Untouchable’
She said that while science has been considered almost “God-like and untouchable” in the past, material semiotics considers how all types of objects, both human and non-human, are used and involved in scientific research.

“It’s not a controllable system, there’s human and non-human actors relating with each other,” Burch explained.

“The discovery of xrays and radioactivity dates back to the 1890s,” Burch said.

The International Committee on Radiation Units and Measurements was formed as a response to the damage radiation was causing, with people beginning to suffer injuries or even dying due to exposure to radioactivity, Burch said.

“Scientists were looking at ways to discuss radioactivity with each other. They needed to have shared units and measurements.”

Jim Marbrook, a documentary maker and AUT lecturer in screen studio production, attended the seminar.

Marbrook has twice been to Japan researching a film he is working on, and found the seminar interesting.

“I thought it was a really interesting topic to research,” said Marbrook. “It was particularly interesting how she analysed the discourse of protection agencies…and compared that to the dialogue that was going on between the people who had to evacuate.”

Jean Bell is contributing editor of the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch project.

• The Fukushima seminar