I HAVE seen those emerald trees entering Han-ayan, Lianga, Surigao del Sur, the home of the 2,000 Manobo bakwets who will be returning as you read this column.
I've seen those high trees that arched over the road that welcomes the Manobo to their community a kilometer away. I've joined these Manobos a decade ago for three times when they experienced the displacements and their return home.
We were atop trucks sent by LGUs (local government units), and we bear the heat for ten minutes or so, and when the truck turns, you see the shade of the emerald trees and the breeze giving you a moment of respite and the welcome. The forests, mountains, the farms, the schools, are there for them.
I couldn't be with the Manobos this time, or to see those trees, yet this is a very significant journey back home.
Last year on September 1, a day after the Alcadev School celebrated its foundation day, the students and their parents left this gem of a village.
Early that day, they were stirred awake by the paramilitary group Magahat who dragged everyone out of their houses. They forced their community leader Dionel Campos to kneel down, and when Dionel held his ground defiantly, he was silenced with a bullet in the head.
The monsters turned to Datu Jovello Sinzo and shot him too, then they went inside the school and saw Alcadev Director Emerito Samarca being held by other members, and slashed his throat and left him dead.
September 1 would be a most painful day for the 2,000 Manobos from in Han-ayan who lost their leaders, their teacher, their school, farms and home to monsters who claim to keep the peace. They sheltered in far-away Tandag City, in a sports complex that was humid by day and muddy by night.
Their conditions stirred the nation to lead the Stop Lumad Killings and Save Our Schools campaigns that call for an end of the impunity of paramilitary and soldiers against the lumads. The Manobo schoolchildren went as far as the United Nations to demand accountability on the Aquino administration that was "dedma" to the plight of lumad children asserting their right to education.
A year later, after a season of waiting, and a change of presidency and the call of indefinite ceasefire, the Manobo decided it is time.
"Pasak nu kabilin, hawion tad." In English it says "Our ancestral land, let's take it back". Indeed, the one year of struggle from such a storm was met with the warmth of solidarity with the Lumads, and this has nurtured the Manobo community to continue to fight for what is theirs since time immemorial.
Storm are seasons that they can weather. Monsters will prey but they will be vanquished by courage of collective affirmation.
For the past days, they made steps to ensure they can go back, notwithstanding the threats of the paramilitary who are still at large.
They had a dialogue with the 402nd Brigade whose commander Colonel Isidro Purisima unwittingly said, "We will turn over your communities back to you." An admission of the military's occupation of their homes after they left.
An advance team of support groups and government agencies visited their community, and sadly they saw two encampments by the 75th Battalion and the schools in disarray. They said the farms have grown weeds and the schools are rendered unusable.
But this will not make the Manobos back away. They will still make that trek as of this reading. A long ride from Tandag to Lianga, and then that turn to their communities in Han-ayan, and also other bakwets from Kilometer 9 and San Agustin.
For there lies their future, their present, the breeze of emerald trees, the stillness of mountains, the rippling of rivers, the schools, houses and farms, waiting for them to come to reclaim, to rebuild, to regrow.
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