CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – Suspected militias raided a village before dawn Thursday and torched a school cottage and destroyed a tree nursery in the southern Philippine province of Agusan del Sur, church leaders and human rights group said.
Human rights group Karapatan said the attack also destroyed a 2,500-square meter demo farm run by the Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development, Inc. (ALCADEV) in Sibagat town. No one was reported killed in the latest raid on ALCADEV schools which opened in June 2013, but it left about three dozen students and teachers without a demo farm and cottage in the village of Padiay.
Bishop Antonio Ablon told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner that the gunmen also burned many school text books and other educational supplies, including sewing machine, rice stocks, diesel generator and audio-visual equipment used by students.
It was the second attack since September this year when militias – used by the army in fighting communist rebels – killed ALCADEV’s executive director Emerito Samarca and tribal leaders Dionel Campos and Datu Juvello Sinzo. The militias also burned two elementary schools operated by the Tribal Filipino Program for Surigao del Sur in the villages of Han-ayan and in Panukmuan all in Lianga town in Surigao del Sur province.
Karapatan accused the 23rd Infantry Battalion as having a hand in the attack and other killings of tribal members in the provinces who were suspected as sympathizers or members of the New People’s Army rebels.
“This is the height of impudence. The Aquino regime continues to ignore the public uproar on the Lumad (indigenous people) killings and the resounding call to pull-out the military troops from the Lumad communities in Mindanao and to dismantle the AFP-backed paramilitary groups. It has instead given the military carte blanche to go on a rampage against the people in remote villages,” Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay said.
AFP refers to the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
Palabay said they and other church groups are currently investigating the spate of extrajudicial killings of natives in Talaingod town in Davao del Norte and in Cabanglasan in Bukidnon province.
She said among those recently murdered by the militia group Alamara and government troops were Datu Manliro Landahay, a council member of the Salugpungan Ta Tanu Igkanugon, the same organization that runs the Lumad schools in Davao provinces; and Mankombete Mariano, who was shot and then hacked to death by Dela Mance militia group in Bukidnon.
The military’s Eastern Mindanao Command has denied all accusations against the soldiers and branded the attacks as clan war. (Mindanao Examiner)
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