“MARTIAL law + bakwit school are both alive and well...”
That’s how a University of the Philippines (UP) Mindanao professor wrote about joining the Lumad bakwit students, their parents and teachers in a flag ceremony protest on Monday in front of the gates of the Department of Education (DepEd).
I translate his description of what transpired that day.
“It was seven in the morning, mothers, fathers, teachers and students of the bakwit school had high morale when they rallied a while ago at the DepEd – even as a swarm of police arrived in four, five vehicles, two of which are crowd dispersal teams! It’s OA, said the person beside me, and of course, we spotted familiar ‘intel’ around the corner taking photos and videos.
“Jong (Monzon, leader of the Lumad group Pasaka) said he saw a tricycle driver who glanced at us and raised his fist. In the middle of the traffic, we did not see anyone frowning, but instead they were reading the messages in our placards.
“Even if there was no plans of marching, and the way back to Haran was far off, everyone walked back after the rally, with a police patrol trailing.”
The protest of the bakwit school is happening after DepEd suspended 55 campuses of the Salugpongan Learning Center, based on a recommendation by a government task force that the schools are training students as rebels.
The suspension was made without due process of visiting the schools and investigating the allegations, a contention that these bakwit students, teachers and their parents are raising in this protest.
The Salugpongan administration is only ordered to “show cause” or present their side after the order was made.
To date, there are 79 Lumad schools forcibly closed under Martial Law in Mindanao. These schools are initiated by Lumad elders with the help of NGOs and religious groups, for the purpose of providing their young generation the proper education that has been deprived of them. But for the military, these schools are looked with suspicion as “rebel schools”.
Martial Law is believed to bring security, peace and order. But for the Lumad, it is bringing insecurity, threats and fears.
They know it as they see how it has pushed them to the margins, their lands vulnerable to plunder, and their schools prone to military and paramilitary attacks. The report of the Task Force on Indigenous Peoples to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights report that since July 2018 there are 77 incidents of forced evacuation of the indigenous peoples due to militarization displacing than half a million (577,161) people.
Pushed to the brink, the Lumad show that fighting to hold on is the way to go. That is why the Monday event happened.
Between a state that clips freedom and the minorities that fight for it, this struggle continues.