Police, military officials face probe for stopping tribal ritual in Bislig City

BISLIG CITY — Spiritual leaders of a tribal group in Surigao del Sur have filed a complaint against policemen and soldiers who took part in the forced dispersal of some 1,000 participants in a tribal ritual last Sunday inside the former compound of PICOP Industries in this city. In their seven-page administrative complaint dated May 16, 2011, and addressed to the Ombudsman, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the tribal leaders said the forced dispersal violated the Constitution itself, which guarantees freedom of exercising faith, religious rights and beliefs.

In their complaint, a copy of which was obtained by GMA News, the leaders asked the Ombudsman, the CHR and DILG to investigate what they described as humiliating and blasphemous incident that grossly violated their human rights. At past 9 p.m. last May 15, a group of policemen, allegedly headed by Bislig City Chief of Police Supt. Ronelo Dungo Aurigue, and soldiers who reportedly did not identify themselves but were believed to be from the 23rd Infantry Battalion and 75th Infantry Battalion stationed in this city, arrived in their ritual area inside former PICOP compound. In full battle gear and some wearing bonnets, the cops and soldiers ordered the tribal leaders to stop the rituals and to disperse immediately, the complaint said. It added, "trembling and in panic upon seeing truckloads of armed men arrived in the area, the tribal leaders immediately stopped the rituals." According to the complaint, the police and the armed men shouted explaining they were only "ordered by higher authorities." Spiritual leader Babaylanon Datu Sumusunod Jimmy Manunuhog and Supreme Datu Bagtikan Roy Gallego in their affidavits alleged that a certain Army Capt. Sereno and allegedly the Bislig City Police Chief confronted the and ordered them to stop the rituals. The two tribal leaders argued that they had asked permission and even security provisions to conduct tribal ritual from the PNP, AFP and DILG, but the law enforcers allegedly insisted the group must disperse, the complaint said. Moreover, it said authorities hauled the ritual participants away, and that some tribesmen claimed they lost some of their personal belongings and even left behind their sacred tribal altar “Bangkaso". Also the complaint affidavits, tribal Governor Higyawan na Holag-ayan, the ritual head, and Datu Kasaligan Jose Romel Murio, claimed they were surprised because the soldiers and policemen who dispersed them were same ones who escorted them in going inside former PICOP compound. The leaders said they conducted rituals to drive away bad luck and bad spirits from the former PICOP area they claimed part of their ancestral domain. GMA News tried but failed to contact the police and the army officials mentioned in the complaint. In the June 15, 2010 Supreme Court final decision, it disallowed PICOP to renew for the third time their Timber License Agreement (TLA) that allowed it engage in logging operations in the 178,694-hectare concession area straddling four provinces – Surigao del Sur, Agusan del Sur, portions of Compostela Valley and Davao Oriental provinces The Supreme Court ordered return of the former PICOP concession areas to the indigenous people who once lived in the area as tribal claimants. In 2008, the once Asia’s biggest pulp firm and paper maker PICOP or Paper Industries Corporation of the Philippines completely stop its operations after declaring bankruptcy leaving hundreds of millions of pesos in unpaid loans. The closure also caused some 8,000 PICOP workers out of work whose back wages and salaries and benefits remained unpaid up to this day. — Ben Serrano/LBG, GMA News