By JUDE BAGGO
www.nordis.net

The Department of Education (DepEd) should for once in a lifetime, do an honorable deed for the Lumad children – keep the Lumad schools open! This is the right thing for a government that historically has neglected and denied the Lumads the right to education. It is wrongful and shameful for a government to close a school that it never helped build. In fact, DepEd should be ashamed that it failed to comply by its obligations to the Lumad children: building schools and providing teachers, books and other school services.

Based on the sharing and interviews I had with students and teachers of these Lumad schools lately during the congressional inquiries I attended, I was truly awestruck by the spirit of the Lumad communities to build and design schools that really suited the needs of their children and communities. I am a teacher by profession but I felt stabbed in the heart when I met and talked with some of their teachers who were also trained in these Lumad schools. They were young, articulate, committed, and compassionate. Their eyes mirrored community dreams. The teachers told me that their schools were designed to incorporate all aspects of learning. Aside from literacy and numeracy, their curriculum gives premium to the full realization of their culture: sustainable agriculture, and nurturing the environment. They called it experiential learning.

But what is shameful and disheartening to know is that these outstanding Lumad schools are viewed by the military as operated by the New People’s Army and for that DepEd is closing these schools. This move by the military and DepEd is highly immoral and a crime against the Lumad children. DepEd is literally closing the bright future of the Lumad children because of unfounded allegations and paranoia of the military.

For a long time, the Lumads have suffered state neglect and denial of basic services such as schools and hospitals. Closing these schools built by the Lumads that truly serve them is a perfect example of the continuing national oppression in the hands of this present government.

The ongoing militarization of Lumad communities resulting to massive evacuation, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearance and other forms of human rights violations, and then closing their schools is no answer to the root causes of the armed conflict. On the contrary, this is an invitation that pushes people to rebel against an oppressive State as one of the options to defend and assert their territories and dictate their pace of development.

Lastly, as indigenous peoples and umili, we should support the campaign of the Lumads to demilitarize their communities and keep their schools open. # nordis.net