MANILA, Philippines - A sectoral council of the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) on Friday called on the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and NAPC head Joel Rocamora to look into the extra-judicial killings of Lumads in Mindanao.
"We call on Secretary Joel Rocamora of NAPC to immediately convene a Regional Inter-Agency Investigation to get to the bottom of the recent killings of Lumads in Surigao del Sur and in the entire island of Mindanao.
"We call on the Commission on Human Rights to probe into the violations of the human rights of the Lumads," the NAPC-Indigenous Peoples Sectoral Council said in a statement.
The council also scored the recruitment of Lumads by the government and the New People's Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, for their own interests.
"We condemn military encounters within the ancestral domains of our peoples in Mindanao and all tribes in our country. We condemn the recruitment of Lumads by both the government and all other armed groups," the council said.