HOPEFUL. Indigenous advocates and authorized professionals, together with (from left) Atty. Glocelito Jayma of the Union of Peoples’ Attorneys in Mindanao, Sr. Concepcion Gasang of Save Our Faculties Community – Mindanao, former DSWD Undersecretary Mae Fe Templa-Ancheta, Moro youth chief Nurainie Rakim, and former Rep. Eufemia Cullamat, vow to press on with the hassle to reverse the conviction of the Talaingod 13. (Picture courtesy of Save Our Faculties Community)
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY ― Indigenous folks’s educators and their allies on Tuesday marked the primary anniversary of the conviction of 13 Lumad lecturers and group advocates, who they are saying had been unjustly imprisoned for shielding college students and defending ancestral lands.
The 13 people, generally known as the “Talaingod 13,” had been convicted on July 15, 2024, of kid abuse by Department 7 of the Tagum Metropolis Regional Trial Courtroom.
They had been sentenced to 4 to 6 years in jail. Their case is presently beneath enchantment.
Supporters argue the conviction was politically motivated, noting there have been no complaints from mother and father or college students. Lumad youngsters testified in protection of their lecturers, and the case was initiated by state safety forces reasonably than any harmed occasion.
On these bases, the Save Our Faculties (SOS) Community had known as for a reversal of the Tagum court docket’s ruling.
The 13 people supplied assist to the Lumad college students of Talaingod, Davao del Norte who had been displaced from their education when the federal government ordered the closure of their colleges that had been ran by a nongovernment group accused by the navy to have hyperlinks with the communist rebels.
In an announcement, the SOS community convenors, together with Sr. Concepcion Gasang, Prof. Mae Fe Templa-Ancheta, and Bp. Daniel Palicte of the United Church of Christ within the Philippines, asserted that the case’s consequence will considerably impression how the nation treats indigenous educators, group colleges, and grassroots defenders.
Lawyer Glocelito Jayma, counsel for the ‘Talaingod 13,’ expressed confidence that the Courtroom of Appeals will reverse the decrease court docket’s ruling, citing concrete proof of their favor.
“Our expectation is that, hopefully, the proof might be thought-about by the court docket,” Jayma mentioned.
For her half, Gasang mentioned the Lumad colleges serve the indigenous college students within the space.
“Lumad colleges will not be threats. They’re lifelines. They had been created by communities who had no entry to public companies,” Gasang informed reporters.
Lumad advocates contend the case towards the “Talaingod 13” aimed to repress indigenous training and dismantle colleges that empower college students to withstand what they name “growth aggression.”
Lumad colleges, typically established in areas with out public companies, educate literacy, tradition, and self-determination, together with the protection of ancestral domains from mining, unlawful logging, and land-grabbing.
Greater than 200 Lumad colleges have been forcibly closed since 2016, in keeping with the SOS Community.
The commemoration, a part of the Katungod Convention 2025 hosted by the Social Motion Heart of the Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro, introduced collectively indigenous peoples and their allies, together with church leaders, educators, environmental defenders, authorized employees, youth, and religion communities.
They urged the Courtroom of Appeals to reverse the conviction and known as on the Division of Schooling, beneath Secretary Sonny Angara, to evaluate and reinstate Lumad colleges.
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In addition they appealed to the broader public to “uphold the reality” and “stand with indigenous communities.” /gsg
