The Court of Appeals (CA) decision upholding the guilty verdict on two of its former representatives is unacceptable, the Makabayan coalition of progressive partylists said.
In a decision made public last week, the CA agreed with a 2024 Tagum City Regional Trial Court verdict that former Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo, ACT Teachers’ Rep. France Castro and several others exposed Lumad children to danger in a 2018 rescue mission.
Makabayan however said the appellate court’s decision sustained the political persecution of activists such as Ocampo and Castro.
“This decision is baseless, wrong and unjust. This verdict must be rejected and justice must be accorded the Lumad who are victims of government’s militarization and violence,” Makabayan president and former Gabriela and Bayan Muna Rep. Liza Maza said.
Maza maintained that Ocampo and Castro were participants in a National Solidarity Mission (NSM) sa Talaingod, Davao del Norte in November 2018 to respond to a humanitarian crisis.
It was the military and the paramilitary gang Alamara that conducted aerial bombings, militarization and food blockade against the community, Makabayan said, and it was a lie to call the rescue mission “kidnapping.”
The children’s 11 children evacuated the 16 children from the attacks and were simply met by Ocampo and Castro to help them reach safe grounds, the group added.
“It was not child abuse; it was saving lives,” Maza said.
Masa pointed that that former president Rodrigo Duterte himself ordered that bombings of Lumad schools and communities in his 2017 State of the Nation address.
Under his regime, 216 Indigenous schools were forced to close due to aerial bombings, depriving 10,000 schoolchildren of education.
The campaign also resulted in 43 forced evacuations across Mindanao, affecting 18,252 Lumad and killings 13 victims.
The Ferdinand Marcos Jr. regime allowed the campaign to continue and allowed the persecution of the “Talaingod 13” to continue, Makabayan said.
A part of the Pantaron mountain range, Talaingod is located at the center of the million-hectare plantation and mining operations in Lumad ancestral lands by foreign corporations, Makabayan said.
The group said it hopes the Supreme Court will eventually reverse the lower courts’ “unjust decisions” against Ocampo, Castro and the Lumad school teachers. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
