Lumad leave their mark at ‘Dept. of Injustice’

TRIBAL RAGE Protesters from Mindanao rewrite the DOJ sign on Padre Faura Street, Manila, on Thursday. Jerome Aning

About 200 “lumad” or indigenous tribesmen from Mindanao picketed the Department of Justice (DOJ) main office in Manila on Thursday, defacing a wall as they accused the agency of sitting on cases where their members had either been killed or “falsely accused” by government agents.

The protesters brought their week-old “Manilakbayan” caravan to the DOJ, accompanied by members of the human rights group Karapatan. “If we’re not being killed by the military or paramilitary groups, the government is filing fabricated criminal charges against us to silence our resistance to militarization and plunder,” Manilakbayan spokesperson Datu Jomorito Goaynon said.

Goaynon said he himself had been accused of murdering his own cousin after he led a campaign against military presence on tribal lands and the evacuation of Higaonon folk in Agusan del Sur province in April.

He noted that the DOJ had yet to order the indictment of paramilitary groups in Surigao del Sur who were accused of killing lumad leaders Dionel Campos and Bello Sinzo and school official Emerito Samarca in September.

Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay accused the DOJ of having “taken on the role of protecting state forces rather than dispensing justice to the victims of the state. There is no middle ground to justice. There are only the perpetrators and the victims.”

The protesters gathered on Padre Faura Street and forcibly removed several letters from the “Department of Justice” sign on a wall and used spray paint to turn it into “Department of Injustice.”

Supt. Albert Barot, chief of Manila Police District’s Ermita station, said security forces in the area thought that the lumad gathering was peaceful but discovered the vandalism after the protesters had left.

Goaynon said the defacement of the DOJ sign was “the expression of the seething rage of victims of injustice in Mindanao.”

“It is a forceful redefinition of the DOJ, as the DOJ is consistent in its abandonment of due process and its supposed unblemished search for justice for those killed by state security forces like the military and the police,” he said.

In a statement, DOJ spokesperson Emmanuel Caparas said the agency “understands (their) anger and sentiments” and actually waited Thursday for lumad representatives to approach department officials for a dialogue.