SCHOOLS built for the lumad or tribal minorities will be bombed, President Rodrigo Duterte threatened Monday, saying that these are violating laws by spreading subversive ideas and teaching students to rebel against the government.
In a news briefing, Duterte linked several lumad schools operating without a permit to communist rebels, whom he earlier said deserve to be bullied.
“These schools are teaching subversion, communism, everything. So better stay away from them. I will tell the lumad there, stay away [from those schools]. I will bomb them. I will include these structures,” he said.
“I will use the Armed Forces, the Philippine Air Force. I would really bomb them … Because you are operating illegally and you are teaching the children to rebel against government,” he said.
During the Aquino administration, several schools built for the lumad were ordered closed and occupied, triggering protests against the military occupation of schools.
The plight of the lumad was highlighted after the September 2015 killings of Emerito Samarca, a head teacher of an award-winning school for lumad youth in Lianga, Surigao del Sur, along with two others, Dionel Campos and Juvello Sinzo, allegedly by paramilitary forces.
On Monday, Duterte took aim at communists in his second State of the Nation Address, saying the enemies of the state deserve to be “bullied” with the full might of the government.
The Communist Party of the Philippines rebuked Duterte for threatening to bomb schools, saying that he was the “lowest of the low.”
“To the Madman Duterte: Nice try. You thought you could still fool the people with your grandstanding and phrase mongering. Having been rebuked by the people’s jeers, you threaten to drop bombs on the lumad schools. You threaten to kill the children. You are the lowest of the low,” the CPP said.
“You are a madman with bombs. You are a bully. An arrogant street thug intoxicated with power. But you only pick on the weak, the small and the oppressed. You bomb their homes, shell their communities and expect them to bow to your power. You exercise power but only against the powerless,” the group said.
Education Secretary Leonor Briones had earlier appealed to the military and other groups involved in the ongoing clashes in Marawi City, to treat schools as neutral ground or zones of peace.
Briones earlier appealed to the warring groups to spare teachers, school personnel and students from violence, intimidation or threat amid the continuing clashes in Marawi City.
“Worldwide, schools are universally treated as neutral zones despite being in the middle of intense armed conflict and are free from the presence of armed combatants regardless of what side they are from,” Briones said.
“It is imperative that this point be stressed, and that our schools be accorded the same respect – that schools are places for learning, caring and nurturing. A true second home for our students,” Briones added.
The Salinlahi alliance for children’s concerns also blasted Duterte for his threat to bomb lumad schools.
“We condemn the President Duterte’s recent threat to bomb schools that the Lumads communities have determinedly established for years amid state abandonment on the education of our indigenous people in Mindanao,” said Eule Rico Bonganay, Salinlahi secretary-general.
