Surigao Sur faithful urged to pray for ‘lumad’

TAGUM CITY—The Catholic Church in Surigao del Sur has called on the faithful to continue “praying for peace, justice and deliverance” for the thousands of members of indigenous communities displaced by attacks by paramilitary groups.

Fr. Fortunato Estillore, Indigenous People’s Apostolate director of the Tandag Diocese, also urged followers to continue giving aid to the displaced lumad, “because up to now they are at the Tandag sports complex.”

Estillore, in an apostolic message read during Sunday Mass in all 27 parishes throughout Surigao del Sur, said that our “lumad brothers and sisters have experienced grievous harassment with the killing of their three leaders.”

The leaders were Emerito Samarca, Dionel Campos and Bello Sinzo. Suspected in their deaths is the armed paramilitary group known as Magahat-Bagani.

“Our lumad brothers and sisters who live in their ancestral land in the mountains are divested in many ways… divested of their right to education, equal opportunity to basic services of the government… They continue to experience discrimination, human rights violations, and persecution and exploitation by those in power,” Estillore said.

He called the lumad “the Anawim (in Hebrew, the poor and suffering seeking the Lord for deliverance) of Yahweh in our time.”

“They do not have defenders and fighters for their human rights that [are] meant for all of God’s creation,” Estillore said.

He said the death of the lumad leaders and the displacement of the indigenous communities “only reflect a situation without security for their lives, a situation of being always under threat, and a situation without protection even under our laws.”

According to the provincial social welfare office, at least 3,000 men, women, children and the elderly from the Manobo tribe in five Surigao del Sur municipalities were living in a virtual tent city at the provincial sports complex in Tandag City.