Lumads refuse dialogue with CHR

MANILA, Philippines - A group of lumads snubbed Commission on Human Rights (CHR) officials after a two-hour protest in front of the agency’s office in Quezon City yesterday morning.

CHR officials, who requested anonymity, said they offered to have a dialogue with lumad leaders to know their demands and update them on what the commission has done on the investigation of lumad leaders’ killings.

Rev. Jun Anchita of the Promotion of Church Peoples’ Response (PCPR) North Cotabato delegation initially agreed to talk with CHR officials shortly after the program in front of the agency’s office, but changed his mind when Kerlan Fanagel, spokesman of Kalumaran Mindanao, interrupted them.

Fanagel insisted that lumads do not want to have another false dialogue with CHR officials because what they want is the result of the investigation the agency initiated a few months after the killings of some lumad leaders earlier this year.

He said lumads are still being harassed and their human rights violated. 

The refusal of the lumads to sit in a dialogue prompted CHR commissioners to hold an emergency meeting, sources said.   

CHR information officer Banuar Falcon told The Star that they are supposed to come out with their findings on the lumad killings, but the commissioners kept on adjusting the deadline “because other things have happened, more people have been killed and displaced.”  

He said the CHR is working to resolve the lumad killings as soon as possible so it can recommend charges before the Office of the Ombudsman.

Meanwhile, Commissioner Roberto Eugenio Cadiz said they have ordered the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to submit the names of its officials who were allegedly involved in human rights violations in Mindanao.

Cadiz said the CHR regional offices in Mindanao have started investigating the lumad killings even before they issued the order to the AFP. 

“If they (AFP) will not submit, it will be taken against them,” he said.

Cadiz said the initial report on the case is expected to come out in the second week of December.

The CHR’s initial investigation shows that there have been killings, human rights violations, extra-judicial killings, abductions and kidnappings, Cadiz said, but refused to disclose further details.

The CHR previously said that they are not ruling out the possibility that the military could be behind the killings of the lumad leaders.