“We hold President Aquino responsible for this policy of ethnocide and persecution that targets Lumad communities. We hold him accountable for the abuses committed against Lumad women and children.”
By ANNE MARXZE D. UMIL
Bulatlat.com
MANILA — Hundreds of women, including Lumad from the #Manilakbayan2015, took to the streets for the National Women’s Day of Protest, highlighting issues of plunder, militarization and violence against women, on Wednesday, Oct. 28.
The Lumad women with other groups such as Gabriela marched to Chino Roces (formerly Mendiola) bridge, near the Malacañang Palace to demand the removal of all military units in their communities, to which they attribute harassment and human rights violations, such as rape and killings.
They also denounced the concerted attack on Lumad schools by the military, paramilitary groups and local officials.
“Ironically, up to his last year as president, President Aquino has lived up to the Marcos tradition of impunity in human rights violations as well as plunder of Philippine economy that the late Aquino Sr. had opposed and even died for,” said Joms Salvador, Gabriela secretary general.
Simultaneous nationally-coordinated protests were also held on the same day in key cities nationwide. In Davao City, Gabriela Women’s Partylist Rep. Luzviminda Ilagan joined the rally at the headquarters of the Eastern Mindanao Command.
Women as targets
Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Emmi De Jesus said Aquino had a bloody hand over the attacks against Lumad. She said Aquino’s silence on the attacks against the Lumad is an approval of killings and forcible evacuation of them from their ancestral land.
“We hold President Aquino responsible for this policy of ethnocide and persecution that targets Lumad communities. We are holding him accountable for the abuses committed especially against Lumad women and children,” said De Jesus.
Marlina Indao, a Lumad leader of Kahugpongang Mag-uuma sa Kitaotao (KMK), a municipal organization of farmers, said they evacuated their land in White Culaman, Kitaotao, Bukidnon because they are also being targeted by the military.
She said that on Aug. 26 the soldiers came in their community. Leaders in the community, including her, were summoned to the barangay hall because the village officials wanted to have a meeting with them. She said 16 residents went to the barangay hall, but to their surprise, only the soldiers were there.
“There was a barangay official who has the list of names and he identified those who are in the list. Thirteen were arrested and jailed, while three other men were used by soldiers as a porter and cook in the detachment,” Indao told Bulatlat.com.
The next day, Aug 27, the 13 residents were brought to the Malaybalay Provincial Jail.
She and other companions were about to go to the barangay hall when they bumped with the barangay health worker who warned them of what happened to the 13.
Since then, she and her husband fled from their village. “We only want to till our land for us to have something to eat. We do not want any trouble. That is why we left,” she said.
Her four children were left in the house. Her eldest sons, ages 12 and 10 were made to carry weapons by soldiers. “We were really afraid at that time, because what if something happened to them?”
Fortunately, her children were rescued from the military. They were reunited in the United Church of Christ in the Philippines Haran House in Davao City.
She is with the Manilakbayan here to call on the government to pull out military troops in Mindanao.
She thanked organizations in Manila for welcoming them and retelling their stories.
De Jesus also deplored the increased vulnerability of women and children to sexual abuses in a highly militarized environment.
The recent documented was the gang rape of a 14-year-old Lumad girl whose perpetrators are soldiers of the 68th Infantry Battalion who encamped in her home.
De Jesus added that there have been several cases of rape, molestation and abuse committed by members the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) against indigenous women and girls in the past. These include the sexual molestation of a Lumad woman hogtied by the AFP during the course of evacuations in Talaingod in 2013 and the abuse of the Manobo girls, including the niece of Manobo chieftain Bai Bibiyaon Bigkay in 2002.
“The list of abuses is getting longer,” said De Jesus, infuriated.
Pull out troops in Mindanao
Bai Ali Indayla, GWP’s third nominee and a Moro leader from Mindanao, reiterated the call for the immediate pull-out of troops in ancestral lands. She said there will be no peace in indigenous territories, and Lumad women and children will see no end to the abuses unless the AFP and its paramilitaries leave.
Salvador also said Lumad communities are being attacked because they stand staunchly against mining and logging companies that plunder their resources and displace them their ancestral land.
Salvador lamented that the intensifying plunder of Lumad communities is an offshoot of fiercer competition for resources and market between powerful countries, especially US and China.
“Communities of indigenous peoples and peasants are subjected to continuous land-grabbing and resource extraction as neoliberal plunder is implemented to the fullest. Because we are not able to develop a national industry that will provide regular jobs and nurture the environment even as resources are utilized, our people as a whole struggle daily with poverty and violence,” she said.
The group is now preparing for a big protest in time for the Economic Leaders Meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec), which they consider as a venue to further push neoliberal policies and peddle more “pacifier” projects for women like micro-financing and Conditional Cash Transfer.
“Today’s protest signals a more intense education and mobilization campaign to protect and defend our resources, our patrimony and ourselves from the all-fronted attack of the Aquino government. As nurturers of our future, women must rise up to this challenge as one,” said Salvador. 
