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Bukidnon, Philippines - On Monday, eight masked men on motorcycles harassed indigenous people and youth activists who were protesting human rights violations, at the grounds of the Bukidnon provincial capitol.
Photos taken by the activists were posted on Facebook the next day showing two of the men riding in tandem on a motorcycle, the driver clad in camouflage shorts and an olive drab sweater; back-rider wore a camouflage shirt and pointed at student activists with what witnesses claimed was a taser (electric shock device) and left immediately then.
A joint statement from the League of Filipino Students-Lanao, the Students' Alliance for the Advancement of Democratic Rights-IIT, Liga ng Kabataang Moro-Lanao and Bayan Muna Youth-Bukidnon said the masked men “halted in front of us, pulled out our sound system, destroyed its amplifier, snatched our streamers and tarpaulins.
The activists said that despite the incident, the capitol security unit and heavily armed soldiers and policemen who had cordoned off the capitol grounds did nothing to either stop the masked men or arrest them.
The activists had joined 11 families from the Tigwahanon tribe, who had been picketing the capitol for six days after fleeing their homes in Sitio Kirangol, Dao, San Fernando because of alleged harassment by the New Indigenous People’s Army, a paramilitary group they claim has been attempting to force them to allow mining and plantation agriculture within their 52,000-hectare ancestral domain.
The lumad also claim it was NIPAR member Aldy “Butchoy” Salusad who murdered their village chief, Jimmy Liguyon, who had been resisting any intrusion into their ancestral land, on March 5 this year.
Salusad has not been arrested and the Liguyon murder remains unsolved.
Source: Interaksyon news
Comment:
I don't like to make an early conclusion but people wearing masks on daytime to interfere or confront someone else is technically a villain. So, if Bukidnon security unit, police, and armed soldiers did not intervene the incident, who will protect these people from any future harassment?