Cullamat blasts Inday Sara for ‘insulting’ lumad’s initiative to learn

Lumad students form lines for a flag-raising ceremony at the Salugpungan Ta Tanu Igkanugon Community Learning Center, which a tribal leader claims the military wants burned for being run by communist guerrillas. KARLOS MANLUPIG / INQUIRER MINDANAO (File)

MANILA, Philippines — Davao Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio’s statement against Salugpungan or lumad schools are all lies meant to insult indigenous people’s (IP) resolve to learn, Bayan Muna Rep. Eufemia Cullamat said on Tuesday.

Cullamat, a Manobo tribeswoman from Surigao del Sur, lambasted the presidential daughter’s bid to completely terminate the permit to operate of Salugpungan schools in Davao City.

“Ang pahayag ni Mayor Sara, na pawang panlilinlang at kasinungalingan hinggil sa mga paaralang lumad ay isang malaking paglapastangan sa pagsusumikap naming mga lumad na makapag-aral sa gitna ng diskriminasyon, tumitinding kahirapan at walang puknat na militarisasyon laban sa aming mga komunidad,” Cullamat said in a statement.

(Mayor Sara’s statements, which are mere deception and lies against Lumad schools, are an outright travesty to our plight to seek education amid the discrimination, poverty, and militarization we are experiencing in our communities.)

“Ito ay insulto sa aming pagsusumikap na tugunan ang pagkukulang ng gobyerno na bigyan kami ng edukasyon at ng iba pang batayang serbisyong panlipunan,” the neophyte lawmaker added.

(This is an insult to our resolve to fight the government’s inability to provide appropriate education and basic social services for ourselves.)

Sara announced on Monday that their City Peace and Order Council submitted on March 19 to the Department of Education (DepEd) a resolution requesting that the permit to operate possessed by 11 Salugpungan schools in Davao City be terminated and canceled completely.

The mayor called the alternative schools “yet another ploy to solicit pity and money from the public while advancing their propaganda against the government” and “useless” since it would “never be recognized by DepEd.”

Sara also claimed a former Salugpungan student informed them that the school are “teaching students how to use firearms, apart from them being indoctrinated with anti-government propaganda.”

But Cullamat belied all these and pointed out that the schools’ relation with DepEd had been good in the past years. The congresswoman also said these lumad schools aim to teach IP students modules appropriate to their tradition and culture.

The House member also said these attacks against progressive schools aim to invalidate their right to education so they could easily be victimized by large mining corporations destroying their lands.

Cullamat also lamented how Sara chose to peddle lies instead of supporting lumad communities’ struggle to attain education.

In July, the DepEd shut down 55 lumad schools in the Davao region allegedly for teaching “left-leaning ideologies.” 

READ: DepEd shuts down 55 ‘lumad’ schools

The former students of the schools are now being reintegrated in regular DepEd schools, according to Sara. /jpv

READ: CHR asks DepEd to ‘reassess’ closure of 55 ‘lumad’ schools