Will the Lumad be able to return home?

WHEN President Duterte announced a unilateral ceasefire during his first State of the Nation Address last July 25, many - most especially the Lumad “bakwit” thought that it won’t take long before they would be able to return to their communities. But intervening events proved that it was not as easy as initially thought.

Everybody’s understanding was that the military, who are the primary cause of their displacement, would pull out from their communities given the orders coming from Malacañang. But in subsequent statements, Duterte clarified that his order for a ceasefire does not mean the return of the military to their barracks. In a taunting claim about how no single barangay is exempted from the sovereign powers of the Philippine government and its military, the President asserted that the military will remain in the communities where they are present.

The main precondition of the displaced indigenous peoples in evacuation centers before they return to their communities was the pull out of the military and the persecution of paramilitary groups that perpetrated human rights violations in Lumad communities. The posturing of the new president was sure to embolden the paramilitary groups that remain present in their abandoned communities and will cause more conflicts, the Lumad lamented. Such statements disheartened the Lumad who were eager to return to their communities.

And true enough, the fears of many and the Lumad came into fruition. On July 29, members of the Alamara were waylaid in an ambush by the New People’s Army causing the president to lift his declaration of a unilateral ceasefire by the next day. A word war then ensued between him and exiled NDF consultant Jose Maria Sison placing the prospects of the peace talks in peril. The incident was a thorny reminder of the difficult path to peace given the complications on the ground.

To President Duterte’s credit, as of August 21, 17 of the 22 NDF peace consultants languishing in jail for several years in various prisons all over the country, have been freed on bail to participate in the upcoming talks in Oslo, Norway. This was welcomed by revolutionary forces with a declaration of their own one-week unilateral ceasefire from August 21 to 27 and the government promptly responded with their own declaration of a unilateral ceasefire with an indefinite end.

All these bid well for the upcoming peace talks where substantive issues about resolving the root causes of armed conflict shall be discussed. More than these welcome announcements of ceasefire from the two warring groups, it is really the discussion of the Comprehensive Agreement of Social and Economic Reforms or Caser that will really be the deal breaker if the Filipino nation is finally able to achieve a just and lasting peace.

However, in the interim, the prospects for peace on the ground and the return of the Lumad “bakwits” to their communities remain dim with the military’s Oplan Bayanihan still in place. While the exchanges of confidence building measure between the two sides have been going on the past week, with NDF peace consultants released from jail, there had also been a flurry of arrests of known above ground personalities who are part of the network of activist organizations sympathetic to the cause of social justice and the Lumad.

The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) vice chairperson Antonio Pajalla was arrested in Quezon Province on charges of rebellion last August 12, 2016. In a development that is much closer to the Lumad cause, Rural Missionaries of the Philippines-Southern Mindanao Region (RMP-SMR) Coordinator Amy Pond was arrested in Cebu City last August 19, on charges of murder. She was attending the National Assembly of the RMP together with religious and lay workers of the organization when she was forcibly taken by CIDG personnel on her way out.

Unless Oplan Bayanihan is rescinded together with overhauling the deeplyrooted culture in the military to target civilians through their paramilitary groups, all of which we have seen in the wholesale displacement of entire Lumad communities and the neutralization of their leaders, the prospects for the Lumad to return to their ancestral domains remain dim even under a Duterte administration. This negative prognosis is heightened with the continued vilification and even arrest of activists who are fighting for the cause of the Lumad and social justice.

The question of under what circumstances will the Lumad be able to return to their communities is an issue that must be discussed as one of the main topics in the upcoming peace talks in Oslo. These issues must be tackled within the general context of transforming the deeplyrooted violent culture of the Philippine military that for decades have targeted the Lumad, civilians, and activists as fair game in their ruthless counterinsurgency operation plans. Sun.Star CDO