Kalinga villagers want soldiers to leave community

LA TRINIDAD, BENGUET, Philippines – Local folk in Uma, Lubuagan in Kalinga are petitioning soldiers to leave their homes, which they reportedly are using as encampments.

 

Soldiers from the 50th Infantry Battalion have been occupying seven houses, an elementary school and the St. Peter’s Church rectory, villagers told a team from a women’s alliance in the Cordillera highlands that visited them recently.

 

“If not for the peace pact forged between our tribe and the tribes of some of the soldiers, we could have kicked them out immediately. They are abusive," an elder reportedly lamented in Ilocano.

 

According to Innabuyug, documented complaints include a soldier allegedly aiming a rifle at a teenager who passed by the church rectory on his way to school at 5 a.m. on Aug. 17.

 

“Sorry is not medicine. I want them out of our village," Innabuyug quoted him as saying when the soldier tried to reach out to him and apologize. His parents are worried about the extent of the trauma their son suffered from the incident.

 

Villagers, especially mothers and elders, do not want any more incidents and are demanding a troop pullout soonest.

 

“We just want to protect our people. We only agreed they can stay for five days for them to rest but they have grown roots that are hard to uproot", another woman villager said.

 

According to Innabuyug, the villagers are also complaining about the alleged harassment of women; the disruption of economic activities; threats and intimidation against several individuals, especially members of the Ag-agama Community Organization. The villagers have also said the soldiers have brought fear and chaos to the community.

 

According to villagers' accounts, the soldiers regularly move around the village in combat gear at night and at dawn. They said troop presence is curtailing their freedom to go to their farms.

 

Their movements have reportedly been monitored for nearly a year because AGCO is a suspected New People's Army front organization.  

 

Earlier, though, the 50th IB confirmed aiding the local police in common police operations against criminality, terrorism and drugs in villages in the Cordillera.

 

The battalion is headquartered in Pinukpuk, Kalinga while its mother unit, the 5th Infantry Division, is based in Gamu in Isabela province.