Kaban ni D_BystandeR: PANAOGDAOG SA MGA "LUMAD" MIGARA???

This is the height of stupidity for a lady lawmaker Rep. Nancy Catamco, LP, to propose that baganis be issued government firearms and be recognized by the government to conduct operations in the hinterlands. Catamco, who was  accused of coddling militia members behind the killing of a popular Italian priest Pops Tentorio is providing legal services for the murderers of the priest. Catamco is only showing her shameless position as anti-people and the worst part is that she was given the House committee chairmanship on indigenous people (IP) making her "a square pig in a round hole." Occupying the committee chairmanship on IP makes Catamco's appointment as a big insult to the intelligence of the Filipino people and sadly brings into focus Aquino's helplessness and failure to exercise discipline on his political allies whose policy runs counter to his much vaunted "Matuwid na daan" that is clearly seen as trampling on the people's human rights and obviously working against people's interest in exchange for the patronage of unscrupulous businessmen who will surely support her to perpetuate in office by assisting her with "tons" of money derived from her questionable connection to  the group that provided protection for the businessmen's insatiable hunger for more wealth in exchange for the persecution, sufferings and killings of the lumads  who just want to find a little semblance of justice and fairness despite the government's neglect of their sad plight.

It's quite lamentable that our government security forces, the Army, is now the subject of a petition filed by civil society organizations and leftist party-list groups for writs of amparo and habeas data decrying a supposed 'hit list' of 70 activists in Mindanao and leaders of leftist organizations. The recent killing of leaders of lumad in Surigao done by paramilitary units in front of their followers assembled in a school is a brazen example of how the lumads were terrorized with the Army just in the vicinity doing nothing to stop them. And yet it now appears that the Army is trying to distort facts by filing complaints of kidnapping and serious illegal detention and human rights trafficking against those who  provided assistance to the lumads to allow them to evacuate to take shelter at the Haran House of UCCP in Davao. And we only know of this news because it is there in the petition submitted to the Supreme Court by the complainants.

Footnote: This comment came out in connection with a news item in PDI, entitled, "LP solon wants guns for baganis." It came out on 09/13/15.