Solons condemn Lumad ‘police rescue’

Several House lawmakers are seeking a congressional investigation into the supposed “police rescue” of Lumad students from alleged communist groups lodging in University of San Carlos (USC) in Talamban, Cebu City on Monday.

Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Zarate condemned the act which he described as a “Gestapo-like police abduction” of students, who are mostly minor, from the Lumad Bakwit School Program dwelling at USC’s retreat house since March 2020.

Gestapo was the official secret police of Germany to eliminate political opponents of the Nazi movement. It is infamous for its violent methods and operations.

“This is truly outrageous and condemnable. The Lumad students are there because the military destroyed their schools in Mindanao and now even in their evacuation or Bakwit school they are being harassed and abducted,” Zarate said on Monday night.

“The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ECLAC) should stop putting words in their mouths, misrepresenting them, and gaslighting them,” he added.

Likewise, the Kabataan party-list on Tuesday condemned the latest operation of the Central Visayas Police.

The group deplored the alleged “merciless abduction” of Lumad youths and arrested 25 individuals, including two volunteer teachers, one of whom was Chad Booc, a cum laude graduate from the University of the Philippines -Diliman.

In the past, Booc, 26, has been persistently accused as an alleged recruiter for communist rebels.

“Indigenous teachers and students have been staying at USC for a long time to continue their education after the Department of Education closed indigenous schools and also due to the continued militarization of their community in Mindanao,” the group claimed.

ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro bewailed that Lumad schools have long been the subject of the government’s red-tagging activities.

“Indigenous peoples and their leaders are victims of state terrorism. They are continuously harassed and threatened. Their school sites in Mindanao destroyed, their school heads, teachers and leaders arrested or killed. Just like what the state is doing to the University of the Philippines and other red-tagged schools, Lumad students and teachers have long been accused of teaching and recruiting rebels,” Castro said.

“With their narrative of red-tagging universities, public school teachers, Lumad schools and volunteer teachers, the Duterte administration sees critical thinking as a threat to its tyrannical rule and attacks our education institutions. These attacks also show how little it respects the people’s right to education,” she added.

The Lumad students are there because the military destroyed their schools in Mindanao and now even in their evacuation or Bakwit school they are being harassed and abducted.

The lawmaker called for the immediate release of the arrested.

The Police Regional Office-Central Visayas, however, maintained that the “rescue operation” was a legitimate one, insisting that it actually stemmed from the appeal of “six parents” whose children have been allegedly recruited as “future armed combatants.”

But the Society of the Divine Word (SVD) priests and school administrators were surprised and denied that the Lumads were being trained to become communist rebels.

Police Brigadier General Ronnie Montejo said the rescue operation stemmed from complaints of six Lumad parents from Talaingod, Davao del Norte, who asked help before the Davao del Norte PNP, that their children were taken since 2018 without parents consent.

He alleged that the children were being used for militant and leftist activities.

But Fr. Narciso Cellan Jr., USC President said “they were surprised by the incident.”

“We did not receive any information or coordination from any government agencies prior to this,” Cellan said.