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Bishop scores NPA, military for recruiting tribesmen


A ranking member of the Catholic Church on Monday scolded the military and the New People’s Army (NPA) for allegedly recruiting into their ranks local tribesmen or indigenous peoples (IPs). Laoag Bishop Sergio Utleg scored the “systematic recruitment" by both sides, which he said not only made tribesmen targets for both sides, but also sowed disunity among IPs. “Because they are unable to express their opposition to the presence of these armed groups, IP communities have thereby become battlegrounds between the military and the NPA," said Utleg, head of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) Episcopal Commission on Indigenous Peoples. In a statement on the CBCP Web site, Utleg said tribal people were either suspected as NPA sympathizers or military assets. He said the recruitment was being done in the provinces of Bulacan, Quezon, Aurora, Nueva Ecija, Zambales, Agusan, Bukidnon, North Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and in the Zamboanga peninsula and Davao City. Earlier, Utleg’s CBCP commission voiced alarm over the rising number of tribesmen being recruited into paramilitary groups. Such recruitment was mostly done in areas eyed for large-scale mining, logging, and energy projects, the commission said. “Recruitment of IPs in the paramilitary force has led to much division and confusion among IPs, also causing unwarranted intrusion into their social and cultural fabric," it said. In Mindanao, recruitment of paramilitary forces was high in Cotabato and Davao provinces, with tribesmen under a group called “Bagani," reportedly created by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to defend their ancestral domain. The commission also reported that indigenous peoples were given sacks of rice and mobile phones to act as informers of the military. But many ethnic groups had refused joining the military, believing that they were just being used as or shields for the government’s counter-insurgency operations. The commission also voiced alarm over the recruitment of IPs by the NPA. “To involve them in military or NPA activities is to make their communities potential permanent battlegrounds," Utleg said. Utleg called on the government and the NPA to respect the dignity of the IPs by stopping their recruitment. He said the Comprehensive Agreement on Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law prohibits the participation of civilians in military operations and mandates the government to continue its review of the policy on maintaining CAFGU or CVO. “They have been so marginalized by the loss of their ancestral domain, the depletion of the forest due to logging and the intrusion of mining. Let us not add more to their suffering by making their communities permanent battlegrounds," he added. - GMANews.TV

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