Dreams of a young Manobo evacuee

DAVAO DEL NORTE – The fresh morning breeze, sparkling stars at night, the simple life in the community where they gather sweet potatoes for their food…these are some of the things that a young Manobo evacuee remembers after she left their home in Sitio Bagang in the village of Palma Gil in Davao del Norte’s Talaingod town.

At 12, Aileen Baliti became an evacuee, together with her parents who are both peasants. She said that she is afraid of the soldiers who have encamped in their community. She said that being an evacuee is not easy. She sleeps on a makeshift bed made of bamboo under an improvised roof in the evacuation center.

Constantly, they are awakened every time a motorized vehicle passes by. As she narrates her story, she feels sick with fever. Aileen says she misses her home and hopes that one day the military will leave their community.

As a young girl, the sound of war and bombs are not new to her anymore. Along with her two siblings, she stopped going to school to join her community in their call for the government to pull out the military troops away from their land.

Deep in her heart, she longs to go back to school and she knows that this dream will only come true once the military troops leave permanently. Before the evacuation, Aileen was on her second grade at Salugpongan ta tanu Igkanogon Community Learning Center at Sitio Lasakan. Every day, she walks for two hours in order to reach her school. She dreams of being a teacher one day that’s why she wants to continue her studies.

She says that there a lot of children in her community who need help in learning how to read and write that’s why she wants to be a teacher. Like Aileen, there are 93 more pupils among 200 evacuees from Talaingod and Bukidnon who are now in United Church of Christ of the Philippines’ Haran to seek refuge.

According to Dolphing Ogan, Secretary General of Kusog sa Katawhang Lumad sa Mindanao (Kalumaran), the education of their children has been persistently under attack since the military troops use their school as encampments and transformed them into military barracks. He said that militarization under President Benigno Aquino the Third’s Oplan Bayanihan has incessantly targeted the Indigenous Peoples. Military troops along with paramilitary groups continue to victimize and terrorize their communities. (Kilab Multimedia via Mindanao Examiner)

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