Manobo kids cry ‘SOS’ over disrupted schooling

While most students his age may now be counting the days till the holiday break, 15-year-old Roland Dalin has lost count of the days he had missed school this year.

Roland and 12 of his schoolmates from Salugpongan Ta’Tanu Igkanugon Community Learning Center (STTICLC), an alternative school for Manobo tribal folk living in the Pantaron mountain range in Mindanao, are in Metro Manila for a monthlong campaign that seeks to draw attention to their disrupted studies.

The Save Our Schools (SOS) Network, the organization that brought them to the capital, is pinning the blame on military operations against communist rebels in the countryside.

The eighth graders are part of an SOS-led “cultural caravan” calling on the government to pull out military and paramilitary forces in areas where schools catering to lumad or indigenous peoples are located.

The children’s campus is in Barangay Palma Gil in Talaingod town, Davao del Norte.

The caravan, which features presentations dramatizing the lumad communities’ plight, forums and a signature campaign, will run until Dec. 3 and take the children to various schools and government offices.

In an interview during the launch of the project dubbed Og Iskwela Puron (I wish to be in school) last week at Bantayog ng mga Bayani in Quezon City, Dalin said his classes had been repeatedly suspended since January this year.

Last October, for example, soldiers and members of the paramilitary group Alamara occupied and fired their guns at one of the STTICLC schools in the barangay, the boy said. “The soldiers were drunk and said there were [New People’s Army rebels] in the mountains. But in our area they were not really looking for NPAs, just ordinary civilians.”

Brow furrowed, he recalled that a 75-year-old woman was tapped by the soldiers to serve as their “guide” in identifying alleged insurgents in their community.

In April, hundreds of residents had to be evacuated to Davao City for fear that they would be caught in the crossfire. They ended up staying in temporary shelters for a month, he added.

“We want the military out of our community. We just want to be able to live in peace. My family lives in fear because of the soldiers,” Dalin said.

SOS Network spokesperson Madella Santiago said there had been 39 cases of military encampments and harassment in southern Mindanao schools that were documented by the Children’s Rehabilitation Center (CRC).

“This is quite alarming as these alternative schools, borne out of the efforts of lumad (indigenous) organizations and support groups and aimed at providing education services for indigenous children, are under threat,” Santiago said.

Riis Valle of CRC-Southern Mindanao said Dalin and his schoolmates were brought to Metro Manila to raise the issue to the national level, since regional government agencies had failed to act on their community’s concerns.

The caravan’s itinerary includes Barangka National High School, St. Therese’s College, the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman, the House of Representatives, the Department of Education main office and UP Los Baños in Laguna province.

SOS Network is a coalition that includes the CRC, Salinlahi Alliance for Children’s Concerns, Gabriela, Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), Kalipunan ng mga Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas and the Karapatan Alliance for the Advancement of Human Rights.

Rep. Luzviminda Ilagan of the Gabriela Women’s Partylist, Rep. Nancy Catamco and ACT party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio attended Wednesday’s launch in support of the caravan.