WHO'S TELLING THE TRUTH?

Below are two letters. The first letter, which is actually a press release, is from the Higala sa mga Bakwit or Friends of the Evacuees in Surigao del Sur composed of organizations associated with the left. The Second letter is from Fr. Florio R. Falcon of the Diocese of Tandag.

The two documents indicate two opposing views with regards the situation in Surigao del Sur.

Who's telling the truth?

Here are the letters:

Military Returns to Lumad Community, Continues Recruitment to TFG-BF

Just 24 days after their return from evacuation, residents of Sitio Purok 5, Brgy San Isidro, Lianga, Surigao del Sur are again being recruited by the military for membership to theTask Force Gantangan-Bagani Force (TFG-BG).
On September 23, 2009, around 50 elements of the 58th IB PA led by a certain Lt. Valdes arrived in the lumad community of Lagdik, Lianga, SDS. After setting up camp in the farms, they immediately began to recruit residents for TFG-BF. Also recruited were women who would, according to the military, become "secretaries and intelligence agents" of TFG-BF.
A member of the TFG-BF told some residents that the military will set up a CAFGU detachment in the community.
Last June 22, 2009, around 49 families with more than 200 individuals from Lagdik evacuated to the Lianga Gym because of massive military presence and enforced recruitment to the TFG-BF. The lumad community school with 62 pupils was closed down. They were later joined by more than 1,500 individuals from 14 lumad communities of Lianga, San Agustin and Tago, Surigao del Sur. On July 28, more than 1,700 lumad evacuated to the Diocesan Pastoral Center in Tandag, Surigao del Sur. On August 30, 2009, accompanied by more than 200 supporters led by Task Force Surigao, they returned to their communities after military pull-out.
Several days after the return of the evacuees, Col. Benjamin Pedralves, the Commanding Officer of the 58th IB PA announced to the media that the military will return to the communities.
According to Caraga Lumad Organization KASALO Secretary General Genasque Enriquez, military presence in these communities is aimed at "clearing" the area of opposition against coal mining of the Andap Valley Complex. Last June the Department of Energy (DOE) awarded ABACUS and/or LODESTAR Consolidated Holdings the rights to mine 6,000 hectares in Andap Valley, within the ancestral land of the Manobo people. The lumad organization MAPASU, the organization of 22 lumad communities in Surigao del Sur, is opposing mining within their ancestral domain lands.
"The return of the soldiers to our communities markes the total disregard of the Arroyo regime and her minions in the AFP to the will of the people. With her true colors revealed, the lumad in Caraga shall continue to defend our right to self-determination and resist all forms of coercion that is detrimental to our communal interests," Enriques concludes.

Higala sa Bakwit
September 24, 2009
____

August 25, 2009

Dear Frances of the CEC and other Cause Oriented Groups:

Greetings to all!

On behalf of the Bishop of Tandag Diocese and the Board of Consultors, I would like to correct some misinformation that are spread all over the country about the militarization of some parts of the province particularly in the Municipality of Lianga, Surigao del Sur caused the Manobos mass evacuation.
The information is recycled. What the fifteen Datu/IP Leaders complained were the military operations that took place in the year 2005 and 2007 in the three municipalities of Lianga, San Agustin, and Tago, Surigao del Sur.
Non-government organizations (NGOs), People's Organizations (POs) and the peole of Lianga that are living in the nearby barangays like Diatagon adjacent to the Indigenous People's Communities were suprised why the IPs from the fifteen communities came down. They will attest that there is no military operation and militarization that took place in their places since they came down to Lianga Gym and stayed for one week and for one month already to date that they camped around the Diocesan Pastoral Center, Mabua, Tandag, Surigao del Sur.
There is no militarization in Surigao del Sur, but just the ordinary military operations that are happening every now and then. Of course there are evacuees numbering 1,400 individuals coming from fifteen communities. There is an organized monitoring team that went up their communities but only a few military were found up their communities because of some sightings of the enemy.
The Parish Priests of the nearby municipalities of Lianga, Surigao del Sur namely: San Agustin, Marihatag, Barobo and the parish priests of these municipalities where the evacuees belong attested that there is no militarization in the areas.
The reports are exaggeration and dramatization resulting to propaganda against the military. This is the usual things that happen from time to time being done by the enemy of the state.
Yesterday, August 24, 2009 in our dialogue with the fifteen datus representing the fifteen communities, they said they would like to go back to their respective places. And so there is another monitoring activities scheduled to go up their areas on August 25, 2009 to assure them that there are no more military, but they refused to cooperate because they were informed that the Commissioner on Human Right is coming to Tandag, Surigao del Sur and so they refused to go with the monitoring team.
The latest development is the coming ofthe National Solidarity Mission to Surigao del Sur to be held on August 28-September1, 2009 in Tandag, Carrascal and Lianga, Surigao del Sur.
This is media mileage and PURE propaganda.

(SGD) Rev. Fr. Florio R. Falcon, DCT
____

Evacuation in Surigao del Sur: A Mere Creation of the CPPs Propaganda Machine

Not a single shot was fired. So what caused the evacuation?

Various organizations coming from the extreme left have accused the Philippine Army, specifically the 58^th Infantry Battalion of the 4^th Infantry (Diamond) Division, of terrorizing some 15 communities of the Manobo Tribe in Surigao del Sur. As per press release by the Friends of the Evacuees in Surigao del Sur, around 1,500 individuls from 15 lumad communities of Lianga, San Agustin, and Tago, Surigao del Sur were forced to leave their homes because of massive military presence in their barangays.

Yet local leaders, including the Roman Catholic Church, have denounced the allegations as mere propaganda. Fr. Florio R. Falcon, DCT, speaking on behalf of the Bishop of the Diocese of Tandag and the Board of Consultors, pointed out in a letter sent to some civil society members that people living around the so-called “affected communities” had been surprised by the massive evacuation because they have not heard of any eruption of hostilities, nor had there been massive deployment of troops by the Philippine Army.

Fr. Falcon has clarified that what they have observed was just the usual military deployment in the communities as part of their routine operations to patrol the areas where sightings of NPAs have been reported. The operation could hardly be considered as something that could trigger massive evacuation.

The subject military operation was not a military operation in the strictest sense of the word. When troopers belonging to the 58^th Infantry Battalion went to Brgy Lagdik in Lianga, Surigao del Sur, they were there to start a process of community consultation-cum-problem identification towards identifying and formulating possible development projects for the communities. In fact, these activities were first presented to the Provincial Peace and Order Councils and the Municipal Peace and Order Council purposely to get their nod and support to the planned peace and development intervention.

With the support of the local government units, the different government line agencies, and the local church and other stakeholders, the intervention eventually commenced last June 2009. Army Troops were deployed in the communities to be able to gather relevant information relative to the requirements of peace and development, the whole intervention being the expression of the 4^th Infantry Division’s concept of Community Organizing for Peace and Development. The information gathering process would have matured into a full-scale development intervention where different government agencies, private sector, and the local government units would work hand in hand to address felt problems by and among the community people.

Unfortunately, the noble intentions of the army was seen by the left as a threat not to the community people but to the operations of the CPP-NPA in the Andap Valley Complex. With the soldiers going the rounds of community discussion and consultation through community integration, the CPP-NPA feared that the people might eventually speak out and expose the CPP-NPA operators in the communities. It was this fear that compelled the CPP leadership in the area to start orchestrating the most organized evacuation that ever happened in Surigao del Sur.

The paranoia of the CPP led to its desperate drive to cry foul even when what the Army intended to do was bring development into the communities of indigenous peoples in the Andap Complex. If it was not paranoia, then how else can one explain the massive evacuation when there were no armed hostilities, or that there was no massive military operation in the communities?

At the expense of the people’s welfare, the CPP then mobilized its cadres, its front committees, and its organs both in the red area and the white area to conduct organized evacuation with the twin objective of dramatizing the impact of militarization, and the protection and defense of party organizations and structures in the Andap Complex. It was a mobilization to defend the established apparatus of the CPP-NPA, no more and no less. The lumad communities were merely used as façade.

Finding no support from the local people except for the usual organizations who are known to close their eyes on NPA atrocities, the CPP propaganda machine orchestrated a national propaganda campaign that will bring attention to the plight of the evacuees in Surigao del Sur. Unknown to many people, the evacuation was the CPPs creation through its legal organizations and NGOs in the area. And the national exposure was no less than the result of the CPPs propaganda barrage.