KARAPATAN marked the first anniversary of the decision by a Tagum City court on trumped up charges against 13 indigenous peoples rights advocates, including former legislators, by renewing calls for the reversal of what it called an “unjust verdict.”
On July 15, 2024, the Tagum City Regional Trial Court Branch 2 decided against former Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo, former ACT Teachers Partylist Rep. France Castro, and 11 Lumad teachers and human rights advocates for allegedly abusing 29 Lumad school children they had rescued after the latter received death threats from the Alamara paramilitary group.
In November 2018, Lumad teachers and students fled Sitio Dulyan, Barangay Palma Gil in Talaingod, Davao del Norte after the Alamara, at the instigation of the 56th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army (IBPA), threatened to kill them. The paramilitary group had earlier been blocking the entry of food and other supplies to the school and eventually padlocked it, leaving the teachers and students with nowhere to spend the night. The Lumad teachers and students appealed to Ocampo, Castro and other members of a humanitarian and solidarity mission that was then in Southern Mindanao, to escort them to safety.
The group traveled in a five-vehicle convoy comprising more than 70 people. They were stopped at a checkpoint by the Talaingod police and the 56th IBPA, where 18 of the group were arrested on allegations of child abuse, including four pastors of the United Methodist Church (UMC). The UMC pastors were acquitted after a trial that spanned six years, but the court decided against Castro, Ocampo, eight teachers and the administrator of the Salugpungan Community Learning Center and the Community Technical College of Southeastern Mindanao and two other teachers from the Alliance of Concerned Teachers. The Talaingod 13 brought their appeal to the Court of Appeals, which has yet to resolve their petition.
In its decision, the Tagum City Court Branch 2 showed evident bias by completely disregarding the serious threats being faced by the Lumad teachers and students whom Castro and Ocampo’s group had rescued, said KARAPATAN secretary general Cristina Palabay. “The court maliciously misrepresented their humanitarian act as a case of ‘child endangerment’ since their group had to navigate through territory hostile controlled by the Alamara before they could reach safer ground,” said Palabay.
“It is the height of absurdity to sentence the Talaingod 13 to spend four to six years in prison for rescuing the Lumad children, while allowing the Alamara, the 56th IBPA and others who have been systematically violating Lumad children’s rights to go scot-free,” Palabay decried.
“The incident in Talaingod is just one part of a bigger picture where former Pres. Rodrigo Duterte infamously called for the bombing of Lumad schools and eventually caused the closure of over 250 such schools all over Mindanao through the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict and the Armed Forces of the Philippines,” said Palabay. “This violated the rights of Lumad children to progressive and culture-affirming education, especially in remote indigenous communities notoriously lacking in social services.”
“One year after the unjust ruling against the Talaingod 13,” said Palabay, “we raise our calls with renewed vigor to have the court’s verdict overturned.”