It didn’t take any actual abuse to send more than 2,000 Manobo from 13 hinterland communities in Lianga, Surigao del Sur and nearby villages in adjacent San Miguel fleeing their homes.
All it took was word that uniformed gunmen were heading their way and the still fresh and extremely painful memory of September 1, 2015.
On that day, members of the military-backed Magahat militia who arrived in Sitio Han-ayan, Barangay Diatagon, Lianga murdered Emerito Samarca inside the award-winning Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development (ALCADEV) which he administered, and executed tribal leaders Dionel Campos, chairman of the Maluhutayong Pakigbisog Alang Sumusunod (Persevering Struggle for the Next Generation or MAPASU), and his cousin Datu Jovello Sinzo in front of hundreds of frightened Manobo the gunmen had rounded up, including children and the children and staff of the school and in plain sight, the military admitted later, of nearby Army troops who did nothing to prevent the murders or arrest the killers.
The Lianga murders sent thousands of lumad fleeing for their lives. It took more than a year before all of them returned home.
Less than a year since returning, on July 4, a message made the rounds of Lianga’s mountain communities — armed men in uniform, some of them hooded, were making their way towards the Han-ayan area. That and the fear of a repetition of September 2015 drove the lumad, including the 199 students of ALCADEV and the more than 400 students of seven TRIFPSS schools in the vicinity, as well as more than 40 volunteer teachers, to flee with whatever they could carry.
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Converging first on Han-ayan, they decided to trek even farther downhill in the pre-dawn darkness Thursday to the community known as “Kilometer 9” after they heard what they believed was a military aircraft circling overhead for an hour late Wednesday night.
Here are contributed pictures of the new lumad exodus:
(ALCADEV photo)
(ALCADEV photo)
(Photo by Chad Booc, ALCADEV volunteer teacher)
(ALCADEV photo)
(ALCADEV photo)
One of two government checkpoints between the Kilometer 9 community, where most of the evacuees are staying, and the national highway. (Photo by Chad Booc, ALVADEV volunteer teacher)
