‘Lumad’ school researcher released

DAVAO CITY — A researcher for a “lumad” school who had been tagged as a New People’s Army (NPA) leader has been set free after she spent a year and three months in jail for a crime that a court said she did not commit.

Amelia Pond, 65, a curriculum researcher for the tribal school Salugpongan Ta’ Tanu Igkanugon in Southern Mindanao, was freed after the Regional Trial Court (RTC) in Compostela Valley dismissed the “trumped-up” murder charges against her, according to Ruis Valle, spokesperson for Save Our Schools (SOS) Network.
SOS was formed to help lumad schools being tagged by the military as communist rebel facilities.

Police had arrested Pond while she was attending an assembly of Rural Missionaries of the Philippines in Cebu City in August 2016. The arrest was based on a warrant tagging her as Adelfa Toledo, an NPA leader wanted for double murder.

Court ruling

The 11th RTC Branch 3 in Nabunturan town dropped the double murder and frustrated murder charges filed against Pond after three complainants recanted and filed affidavits of desistance.

“The court’s dismissal of the murder charges against Pond, as witnesses recanted their allegations, only proved the falsity of those charges,” Valle said.

Valle, however, said while her colleagues and sympathizers celebrated Pond’s freedom and the dismissal of charges against her, her release could not “diminish” her ordeal in jail.

Pond had been put in hospital arrest for surgery on her spine, according to Valle.

But before she could recover, Pond was moved back to the jail facility in Compostela Valley “without consideration of her delicate condition,” Valle said.

Attacks continue

Even as Pond was freed, lumad activists said military attacks on lumad schools and teachers continued to escalate. Valle said lumad schools had been vilified and branded as NPA fronts and their teachers and students harassed and attacked.

Valle warned that the extension of martial law in Mindanao and President Duterte’s threats and accusations against lumad schools continued to pose real threats to the schools and their advocates.

“Despite the injustice of her (Pond’s) arrest, her release emboldens advocates for lumad children’s rights,” Valle said.
The military had denied allegations it was behind the attacks on lumad schools. —Frinston Lim