CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – The labor group Partido Manggagawa on Tuesday said the Department of Justice should investigate all cases of killings of Lumads or indigenous people by pro-government militias in southern Philippines.
This, after the government said it would conduct an investigation into the reported killings. The influential Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines and many other Filipino and foreign organizations also demanded a probe into the killings.
“The killings of Lumad leaders by alleged paramilitary forces in Lianga town in Surigao del Sur, including recorded cases of killings in other parts of Mindanao, should give the government the idea that these murders were rather systematic than isolated in nature as claimed by the military,” Renato Magtubo, PM chairman, said in a statement sent to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
He said aside from the horrendous killings and forced evacuations of Lumad populations in Lianga, there were similar cases of extra-judicial killings against Lumads in other parts of the region, particularly against leaders of the Tedurays in South Central Mindanao.
Some of these cases include the killings in 2014 of Timuay Leoncio Arig and Melencio Ramugon. Before their deaths, Arig and Ramugon were involved in campaigns to include the welfare and interests of tribesmen in the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law and unite the members of the tribes to protect their territory against intrusion, including large-scale mining activities.
Magtubo said a pattern of reluctance on the part of the police and military authorities to pursue the perpetrators of the killings despite available witnesses, indicating a double standard in dealing with heinous crimes and in effecting justice.
“What the killers have done to Lumad leaders, including the brutal murder of the director of a school for indigenous people in Lianga, was clearly terroristic in nature. But why can’t the police and military organize a manhunt against the perpetrators in the way they did against international terrorist Marwan,” Magtubo asked.
He said they are also supporting widespread calls for the disbandment of all paramilitary units organized for anti-insurgency campaigns by the military, saying that historically, these groups are mobilized to counter legitimate resistance such as anti-mining protests. (Mindanao Examiner)
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