PAGADIAN CITY—Presidential candidate and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday ordered the local police to probe deeper into the fire that broke out at an evacuation camp sheltering displaced tribal folk inside a church-owned property Wednesday midnight.
“I deplore the burning if it’s intentional. The police should dig deeper and find out who did it,” said Duterte who was campaigning here Thursday.
Peter Laviña, Duterte’s spokesperson, said the mayor wants the police to find evidence whether the incident that injured at least five indigenous peoples, four of them children, was indeed a case of arson.
“Duterte and the peace-loving people of Davao sympathize with the plight of the lumad [tribal folk] and join their call for respect for their right to self-determination, right over their ancestral land, cultural integrity, meaningful economic growth, and justice,” Laviña said in a statement.
Witnesses from the lumad organization Pasaka said unidentified men in motorcycles set fire to the camp and dormitories inside the Haran compound of the United Churches of Christ of the Philippines, the temporary home for lumad refugees who were driven from their homes by paramilitary groups in Davao del Norte and Bukidnon since last year.
The lumads had sought shelter at the UCCP’s Haran Compound in Davao City due to the presence of military units in their communities purportedly because of the presence of communist rebels in the area.
The Bureau of Fire Protection in Davao City said its initial investigation showed that arson was the cause of the fires that broke out on opposite ends of the Haran Mission House.
Also on Thursday, teachers’ network Educators for Development decried another attack on lumad evacuees that included student evacuees. They called on the presidential candidates to pool efforts to immediately stop grave atrocities against the indigenous group.
“The intensifying militarization has deliberately attacked lumad schools, teachers and children. No one has been held accountable and justice has not been attained for the massacre of lumad educators and leaders, the killing of a lumad student, nor the burning and ransacking of schools and cooperatives,” the group said.
“Military and paramilitary troops have also not been pulled out of their communities as the lumad had long requested,” the group said.
“Not one of the presidentiables has acted consistently on the plight of the lumad whose rightful demands remain unaddressed.”
“This is an opportune time for the candidates to register their stand on the indigenous people’s right to education and right to development,” the group added.
Meanhile, Duterte’s presidential rival Sen. Grace Poe and her running mate, Senator Chiz Escudero called on the police to hasten its investigation into the burning of the Haran House.
“We condemn this act against the lumad evacuees to the highest level. We call on the authorities to investigate at once the incident, get to the bottom of things and punish the perpetrators. We also call for the demilitarization of lumad communities and to respect their right to determine their own path to prosperity based on their culture and beliefs,” Poe said.
Escudero said Davao authorities should immediately act to pinpoint the culprits behind the burning.
“Our lumad brothers need our care and justice more now,” said Escudero, former chairman of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights.
Last year, Poe filed Senate Resolution No. 1572, seeking an inquiry, in aid of legislation, on the lumad killings that had become more frequent and brazen.
She called on lawmakers to formulate legislative measures protecting, furthering and improving the welfare of various indigenous peoples and tribes in the Philippines.
Poe denounced the closure of schools and the threats to teachers who serve in lumad communities.
“Those who have less in life should have more in law. That’s the basic principle in social justice,” said Escudero
Escudero said he believes every Filipino, whether Lumad or not, has equal rights and they should never suffer any form of discrimination.
Frequent killings in the lumad communities, widely believed to have been perpetrated by armed groups with ties to the military, have forced these indigenous people to leave their homes.
In 2014, Escudero co-authored Senate Bill 2358, also known as the Anti-Discrimination bill, along with Poe, to make any form of discrimination a “crime against humanity and human dignity.”
The bill prohibits discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, race, religion or belief, sex or gender or sexual orientation, language, disability, educational attainment and other forms of discrimination.