A tale of two ‘rescue missions’

Spot the difference:

On Nov. 28, 2018, a group of activists and rights defenders organized a National Solidarity Mission after several teachers from a “lumad” (indigenous) school in Talaingod town, Davao del Norte, asked for help following military orders for them to leave the area. Accused of being used to recruit children into the communist New People’s Army, lumad schools were ordered closed down by then Education Secretary Leonor Briones based on a mere affidavit from a former military official. The group of activists, among them former Rep. Satur Ocampo and ACT Teachers party list Rep. France Castro, met the 14 fleeing students and their teachers after their three-hour trek and drove off with them in a van.

This week, the Regional Trial Court of Tagum City, Davao del Norte, Davao convicted Castro, Ocampo, and 11 others of child abuse and sentenced them to up to six years’ prison term and stiff fines. The court said the accused committed acts detrimental to the safety and well-being of the minor lumad learners “by keeping them in their company and transporting them on foot in the evening for three hours in a dark and unsecured road without assistance and presence of law enforcement, government agency, or even a written consent of the minors’ parents, exposing the minors to hazard.”

‘Rescue operation’

In a similar “rescue operation” in February 2021, police raided the University of San Carlos (USC) in Cebu City, and took custody of 19 lumad minors, and arrested without warrant seven others, including teachers and lumad elders, whom police later charged with nonbailable kidnapping, human trafficking, and child trafficking.

Images posted on social media showed the students and teachers screaming as police and social workers dragged them from the university grounds, with most of them cuffed, bodily carried out, and bundled into police vehicles.

Decrying the raid, the USC said it had merely provided shelter and makeshift education facilities to the lumad students after they fled their homes in Mindanao due to armed conflict between the military and communist rebels. Because of the pandemic, their return to Mindanao had been delayed, but none of them were held in captivity.

Despite a resolution from the Makabayan bloc urging the House committee on human rights to investigate the police for its “warrantless” arrests, nothing much has been heard of them since, no cases filed, no sanctions imposed. And whatever happened to the lumad students in both rescue missions? Are they even back in school? What is the government doing to address their concerns?

Wanton Red-tagging

In a joint statement, Ocampo and Castro denounced the decision as “unacceptable and unjust,” adding that the “wrongful conviction speaks of the continuing persecution of those who are helping and advocating for the rights of lumad children.”

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Preventing school congestion

According to the nongovernment Save Our Schools (SOS) Network, at least 176 of their schools in Mindanao have been shut down by the Duterte administration, depriving at least 5,500 indigenous children of education. The group—which helped organize the solidarity mission—said the ruling is “part of a broader, systemic effort to criminalize … and silence advocates for indigenous rights.”

It also noted how former president Rodrigo Duterte has yet to face accountability, despite his clear violation of Republic Act No. 8371 or The Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997. No less culpable is the widely discredited National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, whose wanton Red-tagging had led to the closure of lumad schools. In a major ruling on May 8, 2024, the Supreme Court declared Red-tagging as a threat to people’s life, liberty, and security. Is the justice department even aware of this, and what is it doing against habitual offenders?

Political payback

The child abuse conviction is the latest instance of the law and court processes being weaponized for political payback. Recall the trumped-up drug charges against former human rights commissioner and senator Leila de Lima, which were dismissed after her almost seven years’ detention when prosecution witnesses—convicted drug felons—recanted their testimony, coerced they said by no less than Duterte’s top justice officials. Then there’s the Supreme Court ruling against Duterte’s move to invalidate the presidential amnesty granted former senator Antonio Trillanes allegedly because his application papers had been misplaced. Recall as well how former chief justice Maria Lourdes Sereno was ousted based on a quo warranto petition by her peers, instead of the constitutionally mandated impeachment process. All three are outspoken critics of the Duterte government’s brutal drug war.

With next year’s elections looming, and politicians using all means, including controversial court rulings, to pin down potential opponents, it is imperative for the Marcos administration to look into suspicious cases and crack the whip on those who would subvert the justice system to serve their political masters. The world—and the International Criminal Court—are watching.