The massive human rights violations committed against indigenous peoples or Lumads and peasants are designed to silence the opposition to the continuing operations of large-scale mining and plantations in Northern Mindanao and the rest of Caraga Region.

This was the assessment made by the environmental group Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment or Kalikasan PNE.

“The military is trying to flush out the opposition to mining and plantation interests in Northern Mindanao and Caraga region,” said Kalikasan PNE coordinator Leon Dulce.

READ MORE: Philippines had highest number of killed environmental defenders in Asia

Dulce points out that these Lumad and peasant leaders are the environmental defenders that continue to stand and oppose the large-scale mining and plantation operations in areas of Mindanao.

At present, these environmental defenders are protecting around 243,163 ha of forest and agricultural lands within their ancestral domains and farmlands against the encroachment of these extractive and destructive projects in Northern Mindanao and Caraga Region, he said.

Hundreds of Lumad residents from Sitio Manluy-a, Panukmoan, and Decoy in Barangay Diatagon, Lianga town in Surigao del Sur fled from their homes after the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) conducted a series of artillery bombardment and harassments last month.

On January 24, two Manobo farmers identified as Randel Gallego and Emel Tejero, all residents of Km. 16, Brgy. Diatagon went missing after they were allegedly fired upon by soldiers while hauling abaca products.

Dead farmers
The families of the two farmers found their dead bodies at a military detachment six days after they were reported missing.

The 401st Infantry Brigade of the Philippine Army claimed that Gallego and Tejero were killed in a clash between soldiers and the New People’s Army (NPA) rebels.

But human rights advocates belied the military’s claim, saying that the two were unarmed civilians.

“The Lumad communities in Lianga are standing firmly against the coal and gold mining exploration and development projects attempting to grab lands and resources from their ancestral lands ensconced within the Andap River Valley Complex. For this, they are constantly being attacked by the military,” Dulce said.

These areas in Surigao del Sur are one of the largely militarised areas in Caraga region, prompting the exodus of IPs out from their lands due to the continuing presence of soldiers and paramilitary groups in their communities.

Kalikasan PNE also slammed the “illegal arrest” of Datu Jomorito Goaynon, chairperson of the Kalumbay Regional Lumad Organisation and Ireneo Udarbe, chair of Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas in Northern Mindanao Region on January 28.

The police named the two leaders as “top NPA leaders” which Kalikasan PNE said is a “repeated accusation” to justify the illegal arrest.

“Goaynon and Udarbe are stalwarts of the struggles of indigenous people and peasants against agri-industrial plantations in Northern Mindanao. They have also effectively exposed military-affiliated indigenous paramilitary groups such as the New Indigenous People’s Army Reform who have been attacking Lumad lands to pave the way for mining deals,” Dulce said.

Martial law
With the continued declaration of martial rule, Kalikasan PNE said that attacks against environmental defenders continue to worsen.

At least 28 cases of environmental-related killings in Mindanao were recorded by the group since it was first declared by President Rodrigo Duterte in May 23, 2017.

They noted the “growing trend” of killed defenders vilified as members or supporters of the NPA

“The Duterte government is trying to depict our fellow environmental defenders as rebels or terrorists to justify the militarization of their bastions of natural wealth. We demand that Goaynon and Udarbe be freed and that military troops wreaking havoc in Lianga be withdrawn as soon as possible.

“Justice for the murdered defenders must be delivered and the bloody reign of Duterte’s martial law over Mindanao must be lifted immediately,” Dulce said.

• More Philippines stories

Tactics used to target Filipino drug suspects are now being deployed against leftist activists and alleged supporters of an outlawed communist movement

Last year, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to bomb the schools of indigenous Lumad people in mountainous areas of the southern island of Mindanao for allegedly teaching communism to students.

The threat represented a violent reversal for the tough-talking leader, who famously said on the campaign trail in 2016 that if elected he would become the country’s first “leftist president.”

READ MORE: Manila brands volunteer teachers as ‘terrorists’, say Lumad activists

Upon taking office, the Mindanao native prioritised pursuing peace with the leftist Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing New People’s Army (NPA). Formed in 1969, the NPA has been at war against the government ever since.

Duterte’s peace initiative, like those of his predecessors, quickly fell apart amid new firefights between rebels and government troops.

The president abandoned the peace effort last year and designated both the CPP and NPA as “terrorist organisations”, a punitive upgrade from their previous classifications as “illegal organisations.”

The shift has opened the way for a new offensive against the country’s leftists, a campaign of harassment some see as an extension of his brutal war on drugs. ”

16,000 deaths
The anti-drug drive has resulted in as many as 16,000 deaths, many in police shoot-outs with alleged drug suspects, according to rights groups.

In January, Duterte vowed to pursue left-wing organisations for allegedly acting as fronts for the outlawed communist movement. Weeks later, Duterte stirred a backlash for his unbridled threat to “shoot in the vagina” female NPA fighters.

Duterte’s crude and violent threats against communist rebels has put leftist activists and ethnic minority Lumad communities situated in known NPA-controlled territories spread across Mindanao in the government’s firing line.

In December, eight Lumad tribe members were killed during a military operation against the NPA in Lake Sebu town in South Cotabato province. Authorities later closed the village’s school on suspicion that it was teaching communism to students.

The Save our Schools Network, an umbrella group of child-focused nongovernmental organisations and church-based groups, has documented 225 military “attacks” on Lumad schools since last year.

John Timothy Romero, spokesperson for the Centre for Lumad Advocacy, Networking and Services (CLANS), a civil society group, said 33 formal and non-formal Lumad-run schools in Central Mindanao have been closed by authorities since last year, affecting nearly 4600 primary and secondary school students.

Local military officials accused the schools of teaching subversion and communism, and justified the closures because they lacked proper Department of Education licences. Romero denied the schools were used to propagate communism, although he admitted that NPA rebels have a presence in the affected areas.

‘Caught in the war’
“We’re operating in remote mountain areas where communist rebels are around, but that does not mean that we are NPA supporters. We are just caught in the war between the military and the NPA,” he said.

A local court in Northern Luzon, an area where the NPA is also active, ordered the arrest of four prominent leftists – Satur Ocampo, Teddy Casino, Rafael Ocampo and Liza Maza – on murder charges. Maza currently heads the government’s National Anti-Poverty Commission.

The court ruled out the murder case against the four on August 13 due to insufficient evidence.

Ryan Amper, spokesperson for the Stand for Human Rights Mindanao group, stressed the crackdown against leftists, human rights activists and environmental defenders is part and parcel of the Duterte government’s rising political persecution.

Amper says that “Oplan Tokhang”, Duterte’s anti-drug policy that has morphed into a seemingly unmitigated killing spree against illegal drug users and pushers, is now being deployed against left-leaning activists, community leaders and Lumads who resist big mining and plantation operations in Mindanao.

“We have verified incidents where the military knocked on the houses of suspected NPA rebels or supporters and asked them to surrender,” Amper said.

He said in several cases those identified as NPA supporters, including some who opposed big mining operations, were eventually killed by unidentified gunmen.

State agent killers
Amper’s group has recorded at least 140 killings of activists and Lumad tribal leaders, allegedly perpetrated by state agents, since Duterte came to power.

Duterte’s anti-drug drive has killed at least 4075 in legitimate police operations, according to official data up to March 2018. More than 16,000 potentially related deaths recorded through the end of 2017 were classified as “cases under investigation.”

Oplan Tokhang was derived from the two Visayan words “toktok” (knock) and “hangyo” (plead). With tactics derived from Duterte’s Davao City when he served as mayor, the operations involve police officers knocking on the doors of alleged drug suspects and pleading for them to surrender and undergo rehabilitation.

Amber says those tactics have been transformed into “political tokhang”, whereby more than 600 mostly leftist activists in Mindanao have been slapped with allegedly fabricated charges, mostly by the military, since Duterte assumed power in June 2016.

“This political tokhang is meant to silence the dissent of activists and community leaders,’ Amper said.

Amper blamed the growing number of cases filed against activists on the Inter-Agency Committee on Legal Action, which was created by the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines in October 2017. The mechanism aims to strengthen intelligence-gathering, investigations, prosecutions and monitoring of perceived “threat” groups in the country.

Captain Arvin Encinas, spokesperson of the 6th Infantry Division based in Central Mindanao, denied accusations that the military has filed fabricated charges against those critical of the government or its associated business interests.

‘Evidence-backed’
“Our charges are backed with evidence,” he said. Encinas also acknowledged that there has been a surge in cases filed against believed militants and community leaders since the military intensified its operations against the NPA in response to Duterte’s call to “crush” the insurgents.

The allegedly “manufactured” charges filed against suspected communist rebels and their activist supporters include murder, frustrated murder, serious illegal detention, alarm and scandal, public disorder, grave coercion and obstruction of justice, among others.

So far, the government has sought to declare  more than 600 individuals as “terrorists” in the mounting crackdown against the communist movement under the Human Security Act of 2007, which critics said puts named persons on a virtual “hit list” for state agents.

From a high of 25,000 combatants in the 1980s, the military estimates there are now around 3700 NPA guerillas under arms, mostly operating in Mindanao, a region prone to various types of insurgencies.

The military hopes to reduce the NPA’s numbers by half this year through programs that include payments for surrendered firearms and livelihood assistance schemes that help fighters transition to live peacefully in mainstream society.

For Amper and others, Duterte’s regime is laying the groundwork for mass arrests and even political killings by filing false charges against political dissenters.

Activists are fighting back through protests. Last month, a Lumad group barricaded the entrance of the Department of Education in Central Mindanao with a coffin bearing the remains of their dead tribal leader, Pakingan Gantangan.

Cardiac arrest
Gantangan died of cardiac arrest on July 21 while participating in a months-long picket protest seeking permits for dozens of schools serving Lumad communities that had been closed by the government for operating without licenses.

They recently dismantled their picket after reaching an agreement with education officials.

Gantangan’s daughter, Jolita Tolino, a volunteer teacher for the school operated by CLANS in their remote community in Sultan Kudarat province’s Kalamansig town, was arrested by the military earlier this year on charges of murder and frustrated murder.

Her family claims the charges are fabricated.

Bong S. Sarmiento is a Philippines-based journalist with the Asia Times.

• Lumad campaigners appeal for NZ support to defend schools

Philippine state security forces have repeatedly blocked members of a fact-finding mission investigating human rights violations against peasant farmers and indigenous Lumads in Mindanao.

Since their arrival at the airports in Davao City, Lagindinangan and Butuan City yesterday, all the way to highly-militarised peasant and Lumad communities in Southern Mindanao, Northern Mindanao and the Caraga region, members of the three-team mission have been subjected to different forms of harassment and intimidation.

Suspected soldiers took pictures of the Caraga team members and “welcomed” them with a banner that read “Just do it right” upon their arrival at the airport in Butuan City.

The Southern Mindanao team members saw streamers in Tagum City that read, “OUT NOW IFFSM [International fact-finding Mission]; WE WANT PEACE.”

READ MORE: Manila brands volunteer teachers as ‘terrorists’, say Lumad advocates

Anakpawis Representative Ariel Casilao said the military was behind the streamers.

“The AFP [Armed Forces of the Philippines] has no credibility in talking peace. We thus revise the slogan; instead it should read: AFP OUT NOW; WE WANT PEACE,” he said.

The Northern Mindanao mission team was blocked three times by police and military forces from the airport in Lagindingan to Cagayan de Oro.

From the city to the mission site in Patpat village in Malaybalay, the team was blocked eight more times.

‘No wonder military don’t want us’
Rafael Mariano, former Agrarian Reform Secretary and head of the Northern Mindanao team, said, “We came here for a very urgent reason, we came here to verify mounting reports of rights abuses against peasant and Lumad communities perpetrated allegedly by military elements.

“No wonder the military people don’t want us here.”

President Rodrigo Duterte placed the whole island under martial law on May 24, 2017, after an attack in Marawi City.

Citing “continued threat of terrorism and rebellion,” Duterte asked Congress to extend martial law until December this year. Duterte’s supporters in Congress railroaded the extension.

Seventy-one full battalions of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) are operating in Mindanao, of which 41 are focused on counterinsurgency operations.

The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said at least 65 percent of the AFP’s combat troops are concentrated in Mindanao, where large-scale foreign plantations and mining concessions are to be found.

Human rights alliance Karapatan documented 126 victims of political killings as of December 2017, of whom 110 were farmers mostly coming from Mindanao.

In Southern Mindanao alone, 63 cases of extrajudicial killings have been recorded,

‘Bulldozing their way into vast lands’
“The unabated militarisation and Martial Law itself in Mindanao must be understood as a means for government, big landlords, oligarchs and multinational corporations to further bulldoze their way into the vast lands and resources of the island,” Mariano said.

“This is not the way to address the roots of the armed conflict. This is not the way to a just and lasting peace.”

The teams also reported to have been closely tailed by several vehicles from the airport to the orientation sites and to the villages where interviews with victims victims were to be held.

Undeterred, the teams were able to finally proceed to their respective mission areas.

“We managed to get past all the checkpoints so far after seemingly endless negotiations with the state forces but this is only the first day and the day is still long and so we must remain vigilant throughout the rest of the day and the entire duration of the three-day mission,” Mariano said.

Former congressmen Satur Ocampo and Fernando Hicap, and incumbent representatives of the Makabayan bloc, are among the delegates of the International Fact-Finding Mission to Defend Filipino Peasants’ Land and Human Rights Against Militarism and Plunder in Mindanao organised by KMP and the Mindanao for Civil Liberties.

Also joining the mission are the Asian Peasant Coalition, Pesticide Action Network – Asia Pacific, People’s Coalition for Food Sovereignty, Rural Missionaries of the Philippines, International League of Peoples Struggles (ILPS) Commission 6, Youth for Food Sovereignty (YFS), Karapatan, and Tanggol Magsasaka.

In the past two weeks, a group of Lumad educators have visited New Zealand to talk about the human rights violations in education as part of the Save Our Schools programme.

Ronalyn V. Olea is a reporter for Butlalat.

• Gallery: Lumad campaigners appeal for NZ support to defend schools
• ‘There is no legal basis to extend martial law in Mindanao’ – petitioners
• Flashback: A cloud over Bukidnon forestry aid project

New Zealand and Filipino teachers, community advocates and students this week launched an open letter appealing to Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to end military abuses against indigenous Lumad people in the southern island of Mindanao.

They also called on the Manila government to scrap a terrorist listing of Lumad leaders and community activists.

The appeal was made in response to a group of Lumad advocates and teachers from the Save Our Schools (SOS) network who have been visiting New Zealand for a speaking tour.

The activists spoke at Auckland’s Peace Place in their last meeting before returning to the Philippines.

Pacific Media Centre’s Del Abcede was there to capture the event in images.

• Manila brands volunteer teachers as ‘terrorists’, say Lumad advocates

Save Our Schools

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Australian trade union groups and Philippines solidarity networks have joined in protesting over the Kidapawan massacre in the southern island of Mindanao last Friday, leaving 3 dead, 87 missing and 116 wounded.

According to Interaksyon, security forces opened fire as they dispersed farmers and indigenous lumad tribespeople who were blockading the Cotabato-Davao highway in Kidapawan City.

The number of wounded had climbed to 116, according to Ariel Casilao of Anakpawis, speaking by phone from the United Methodist Church (UMC) compound in Kidapawan. But other reports have indicated a lower number of casualties.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions; Maritime Union of Australia, SEARCH Foundation; Philippines Australia Union Link; Action for Peace and Development in the Philippines, and Migrante Australia are among those who have prostested.

A protest letter has been delivered to the Philippines consulate in Sydney.

“We are outraged at the shooting of a large and peaceful protest of farmers in Kidapawan, Mindanao, last Friday morning, by the Philippines National Police,” Peter Murphy, spokesperson for the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines, said today.

“We demand action from the Philippines President today, along with protests around the globe.”

The casualty figures given were smaller than those reported by Interaksyon.

A statement by the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) said he shootings left two people dead, and at least 37 hurt and wounded.

Many were still unaccounted for after the violent dispersal, including women, elderly and six minors.

45 arrested
At least 45 men were illegally arrested and are now under police custody at the Kidapawan Gym, while 27 women (three are pregnant and two senior citizens) were arrested and are now at the Kidapawan City Convention Center.

The rest of the protesters who are in sanctuary at the UMC’s Spottswood Methodist Center  continue to experience harassment, as combined elements of the police and military surround the church compound and restrict the entry and exit of farmers, their supporters, and churchgoers.

The farmers mounted the protest against the government’s attention to the much-needed distribution of relief goods and agricultural assistance amid the impact of the El Niño climate phenomenon.

The government had promised billions of pesos to mitigate the situation. But nothing followed.

The ICHRP called for:

1. Immediate independent investigation of the incident;
2. Pull-out of police and military elements blocking the entry and exit of protesters and support groups in the UMC compound;
3. Release of protesters illegally detained by the PNP;
4. Immediate distribution of the rice support and other calamity assistance to the farmers;
5. Relief and prosecution of police officials involved in the dispersal and shooting of farmers pending an impartial investigation;
6. The accountability of Governor Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza and all involved officials;
7. The Philippine government to adhere to/respect the basic fundamental right of its citizens to freedom of association and assembly, and to come to its defence and aid when disasters have deprived them of their basic needs.

• Demand for rice turns bloody
• North Cotabato governor slammed for threatening bishop