THE MILITARY on Tuesday admitted that it was recruiting “lumad” (indigenous peoples) to be part of its forces but denied involvement in human rights violations and extrajudicial killings of the indigenous tribes from Mindanao.
Col. Restituto Padilla Jr., spokesperson of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, said the military was not involved in killings of lumad as claimed by the Commission on Human Rights (CHR).
“We are not involved in extrajudicial killings and if there are members of the Armed Forces or the police who are guilty of that, then they should be brought to the bar of justice,” said Padilla.
The military was reacting to the CHR statement that both the AFP and the New People’s Army (NPA) were actively involved in the recruitment of lumad to be fighters for their own causes, and were engaged in human rights abuses and killings.
For Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), the issue is not about the lumad joining the communist insurgency in the “civil war” that’s raging in Mindanao.
The group assailed the CHR for stating that both the AFP and the NPA were recruiting lumad for combat, and for suggesting they were equally responsible for the extrajudicial killings of indigenous folk.
Bayan said the human rights body missed the point by laying the blame on the doorstep of both the military and communist leadership for the outbreak of violence in lumad communities, essentially diminishing the military’s role.
“That the lumad join the NPA is not by itself the problem,” said Bayan secretary general Renato Reyes Jr.
“It is merely the result of the continuing plunder and abuses committed against the lumad. That is why there are peace talks to address the root causes of the armed conflict and to address why the lumad join the NPA,” he said.
“Will militarizing lumad communities stop them from joining the NPA? History has taught us otherwise,” Reyes said.
Equal opportunity
The Army spokesperson, Col. Benjamin Hao, admitted the Army was recruiting lumad to be soldiers “as part of the equal opportunity given to them by the government.”
Hao said 5 percent of the current recruits in Eastern Mindanao were members of lumad tribes in the region.
“Unlike the forced recruitment of the NPA, the recruitment of the Army is based on the clamor of the local lumad leaders. The Army supports the premise of ‘who else can serve and secure them better than the lumad themselves,’” Hao said.
The Army has 200 lumad members on its roster of 85,000, with 78 officers and 122 enlisted personnel. For this year’s recruitment of 2,300 soldiers all over the country, the 10th Infantry Division in Mindanao has allocated 10 slots for members of indigenous groups.
Hao added that other lumad voluntarily joined Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Units to help protect their communities.
He maintained that the Army was transparent on human rights violations and extrajudicial killings, answering allegations in formal investigations conducted by government legal bodies.
“We have provided the CHR all legal documents needed to express our strict adherence to human rights, international humanitarian law and the rule of law. We will be asking again the CHR some clarifications in order to clear the issue,” he said.
Whitewashing
Kabataan Rep. Terry Ridon, a member of the Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives, said the CHR statement appeared to underplay or even absolve the AFP from charges of its big part in the internal displacement of the lumad.
“The CHR is whitewashing the issue by painting a portrait of the lumad as simply being ‘used’ by the AFP and the NPA in the ongoing civil war in the countryside,” he said.
“What the CHR fails to show, however, is that the lumad themselves are being targeted by the military—with or without the presence of the NPA,” he said.
On Monday, the CHR, chaired by Jose Luis Martin Gascon, said it had recorded 35 cases of extrajudicial killings from 2001 to September 2015 involving 59 members of the IP community in Mindanao.
“Of these, 10 cases were allegedly perpetrated by the AFP, while eight cases were attributed to the NPA,” it said. “Thus, neither side can claim to have the moral high ground to attribute excesses on the other.”
Not enough
Although it did not side with either group, the CHR’s sternly worded statement was a departure from previous ones that tended to equivocate on the military’s role in the bloodshed that has displaced thousands of indigenous folk from their homes and their ancestral domains.
But Reyes and Ridon said it was not enough.
“The CHR should point out that under this counterinsurgency campaign, it is the AFP that is responsible for gross human rights violations against the lumad, including the displacement of thousands who are now in evacuation centers in different regions in Mindanao,” Reyes said.
He said the lumad only wish to return to their homes and communities. But “they cannot do so because the counterinsurgency operations have not stopped and the perpetrators of the killings have not been arrested,” he said.
“The lumad are struggling for their right to self-determination. They are not mindless pawns in a conflict nor helpless victims caught in the crossfire. They have become targets because they have chosen to fight back against the oppressive regime and the big corporations that wish to plunder their land,” he said.