COMMENTARY: We Want to Speak, Hear Us

Other incidents, most of which you have probably never heard about, have happened for the past years and are still happening now in different lumad communities.

Ma’am Monsod, after saying this, will you also bear the same thinking of the AFP and include us in your list of the “hard left”? Mind you, this fits the pattern: we get vilified, we get killed, then our just demands against the military operations within our communities and schools are trivialized, the reason behind the systematic killing and displacement reduced to an internal conflict that lays the blame on the victims.

We have our indigenous knowledge and systems and it pains us that these are coopted and bastardized by the government’s counter-insurgency program. Our datus and elders have certainly upheld our own traditional systems to defend our lands and community. Many have died, many were killed because they stood up for our land and indigenous systems and spoke of our plight – my father, my grandfather, and my school’s executive director, are just a few of them.

We speak, but we are constantly being silenced by the absence of services for education, historical discrimination, and outright repression and terrorism. We seek help from different organizations and churches, including Katribu and other indigenous peoples organizations, the Makabayan bloc to let our voices be heard in Congress, KARAPATAN for documentation and monitoring of human rights violations based on our testimonies and experiences. We give them mandate as we are part of these organizations, and we believe that it is the duty of these organizations to use this mandate to support and defend us. If only Papa or Datu Bello is alive, they would be more than willing to speak. Now hear us, give us your space and let us speak.