ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines, 5 December 2007 — An umbrella organization of indigenous tribes yesterday sought an end to ongoing military operations in the southern province of Surigao del Sur, which has reportedly displaced more than 1,500 people.
The militant group Pasaka Lumad Confederation said more than 1,500 Manobo tribesmen have been affected by the military offensive in several hinterland villages where soldiers were pursuing communist New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas since last week.
Datu Monico Cayog, one of the group’s leaders, also accused soldiers of violating the human rights of many natives on mere suspicion they were rebel supporters.
The military offensive was triggered by a rebel ambush on Saturday of government soldiers that injured more than dozen infantrymen in the town of Lianga in the northeastern side of the main southern island of Mindanao.
Cayog lamented that civilians in the province always have to bear the brunt of a military reprisal every time a soldier is killed.
“The death of a military man due to an NPA land mine explosion was not the fault of the civilian communities,” he said.
Teachers on Strike
Further down south in Sulu province, teachers of public schools refused to work for the second day yesterday to protest alleged nonpayment of their salaries.
The strike began Monday with several hundred teachers walking out of classes, complaining that they have not been paid their wages over the past months and that their contributions to the state pension agency, totaling over 600 million pesos since 2003, were missing.
There are more than 5,000 public schoolteachers in Sulu, one of the six provinces under the jurisdiction of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
They earlier warned regional Gov. Zaldy Ampatuan that they would resort into a mass walkout should he fail to act on their problems. Sulu Gov. Sakur Tan yesterday appealed to the teachers to end their strike and return to work. Tan said he was organizing a team composed of teachers and education officials to look into the complaints.
“We will look into these problems and try to resolve it peacefully in coordination with the Department of Education in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao,” he told reporters.
Tan said the teachers converged at the office of the Department of Education in Sulu province
Lawyer Oscar Sampulna, ARMM executive secretary, denied the allegations and insisted the teachers have been paid their salaries on time.
“They are receiving their salaries. Those who are complaining were temporary teachers whose special permits to teach had not been renewed or revoked basically for their lack of the proper documents required by the Department of Education,” he said.
The teachers said no one from the region’s Education Department or any of its representatives went to Sulu to talk to them about their complaints.
In October, more than 1,000 teachers sought help from Governor Tan to bring the matter to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Abdulbasit Pawakil, president of the larger Federation of Sulu Teachers, also asked for a government audit and to investigate the problems of delayed and missing salaries and contributions to the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS).
He said that as of 2003, more than P389 million of teachers’ contributions to GSIS were missing and that this has ballooned to over P600 million and yet ARMM continues to deduct insurance premiums from their salaries.
The teachers were asking for a formal congressional investigations into the missing GSIS contributions and salaries and jail those who would be found guilty of embezzling funds.
