Group claims displaced Agusan tribal folk forced to go back home

Thirty-seven indigenous Mamanwa families were forced to return to their homes in Zapanta Valley, Kitcharao town in Agusan del Norte, almost a week after they fled for fear of being caught in a cross fire, a group said on Sunday. Nokie Calunsag from Green Mindanao – an environmental and indigenous people's rights advocate group – claimed soldiers from the 30th Infantry Battalion (IB) forced the Mamanwa evacuees to board military trucks that would bring them back to Zapanta Valley. Over 200 people in 37 families fled their homes last May 31 due armed clashes between the military and combatants of the New People's Army (NPA). The evacuees, composed of around 220 people of whom 64 are minors, temporary settled in Sitio Bacud in Barangay Luna, Surigao City. Meanwhile, the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines, a religious group in the region that assisted the evacuees, confirmed Green Mindanao’s claims, saying that the lumads (indigenous people) were forced to return home, despite their opposition. However, Philippine Army 30th IB Commanding Officer Lieutenant Colonel Erwin Rommel Lamzon told GMA News that it was time for the evacuees to return home. According to Rommel, government troops have already secured the area, and that the Mamanwa evacuees need not worry about the NPA rebels. However, the lumads resisted the military's move to return them home, fearing that the campaign against the NPAs in their area might just be “ningas cogon" [short-lived enthusiasm]. Mamanwa leaders said the absence of national government workers in their area has made the situation in Zapanta Valley worse, because education and livelihood projects were never implemented there. “We challenge the national government to send its workers to visit us and see for themselves our situation there. Until now we do not know how a government worker looks like," a Mamanwa leader told GMA News. “They [government workers] become active only if there are mining applicants in our ancestral areas. They visit and inspect our areas with gusto," the tribal leader added.— Ben Serrano, with Bea Cupin/LBG, GMA News