Page 36 - SEPTEMBER 2017 B ISSUE

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SLAIN LUMAD YOUTH OBELLO BAY-AO WAS
AMONG TRIBE’S ‘BEST AND BRIGHTEST’–COUSIN
HAD Obello Bay-ao not gone home
to Talaingod, Davao del Norte to help
with the farming, the Grade 7 student
of the Salugpongan Tu Tano Igkanogon-
Community Learning Center Inc.,
a lumad school, might well be alive still, Ecija some two weeks after he went
his cousin Rorilyn Mandacawan said.
The 19-year old Manobo was
actually one of the lumad who had
journeyed from Mindanao to Metro
Manila in the Lakbayan 2017and set up
camp, including a “bakwit” (evacuee)
school set up by the Save our Schools
Network, at the University of the
Philippines Diliman, Rorilyn said.
“He was actually here with us, when
we first came to the bakwit school here
in Manila. He went home to help with
the farming. How I wish he had gone
back here,” said Rorilyn.
As it was, Obello, 19, was shot as
he walked home after harvesting his
cornfield, allegedly by cousings Ben
and Joven Salangani, members of the
both the government’s Citizen’s Armed
Forces Geographical Unit and the
military-backed militia Alamara, the
afternoon of September 5.
He made it home despite his wounds
but died that evening in the hospital
where he was rushed.
Obello’s killing happened at the same
time three youth—Kian Lloyd delos
Santos, 17, Carl Angelo Arnaiz, 19, and
Reynaldo de Guzman, 14—were killed,
‘SOBR A NA ANG PAG DANA
of minors killed in Du30 drug war to come out
MANILA – Saying there has been
too much bloodshed already, Pablo
Virgilio “Ambo” David, the Catholic
bishop of Caloocan City, where two
teens died in the hands of the police,
is urging relatives of young victims of
extrajudicial killings as well as those
who have witnessed the executions
to come forward and tell what they
know.
“If you are a relative of a victim
of extrajudicial killings, or witness to
an extrajudicial killing of a particular
the first two in what police claimed
were shootouts but what subsequent
investigations tended to indicate may
have been executions, the latter found
dumped in a creek in in Gapan, Nueva
missing with his friend Arnaiz, his head
wrapped in packing tape and some 30
stab wounds piercing his body.
The killings have reignited
widespread anger and revulsion at the
war on drugs waged by the government,
which has claimed what some estimates
place at more than 13,000 lives since
last year, including young people and
even children, casualties President
Rodrigo Duterte has often shrugged off
as “collateral damage.”
But to the lumad, Obello’s death is
more proof that they remain a target
of state repression and of interests out
to wrest their rich ancestral lands away
from them. The young man was the
33rd member of a national minority
to fall victim to extrajudicial killing
under Duterte, not counting those who
may have died in the course of the
continuing Marawi crisis.
Rorilyn, who is 17 and in 10th
Grade at the same school her cousin
attended, remembered him as “kind,
talented, hardworking, and a “joker,”
not in the mischievous sense but
someone who, with his toothy grin,
had the talent of making others laugh
K NG DUG O’ Bishop urges witnesses, kin
victim, now is time to come out and
prove that Kian, Carl and Reynaldo
were not isolated case,” the prelate,
who is the younger brother of sociology
professor Randolf “Randy” David, said
at a press briefing on Thursday, Sept.
14, at the Commission on Human
Rights office in Diliman, Quezon City.
Seventeen-year-old Kian delos
Santos, a Grade 11 student, was killed
during a police anti-drug operation in
Caloocan last August 16.
Twelve days later, 19-year-old
Caloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio
“Ambo” David during a press briefing more than a week after the non-
at the Commission on Human Rights
office in Diliman, Quezon City on
Thursday, Sept. 14, 2017. Photo by
Bernard Testa/InterAksyon
NEWS
no matter how difficult things were.
“Obello was a leader by example,”
Rorilyn said. “His younger cousins
really admired him, but for that matter,
so did all of the children at the school.
He was very good at drama and could
express his emotions very well; almost
always his group would be the best in
any dance or drama competition.”
When asked why Obello was still in
Grade 7 at his age, Rorilyn smiled and
said: “When we were without a school
in the community, we had no options.
Sometimes there is still hunger and we
only eat root crops. Obello was the one
to lead our clan of cousins in the fields,
during (the) agricultural season. He
was really smart and strong. For a time,
Obello stopped schooling. We cousins
teased and joked with him to encourage
him to return to his studies.”
STTI Community Learning Center,
which has existed for 10 years, is a mix
of students of all ages, Rorilyn explained. and family always evident.
Obello actively participated in class
and was especially good at drawing.
In fact, said Rorilyn, he dreamed of
becoming an engineer so he could help
build more schools and other facilities
for the lumad.
He was also a member of the student
organization Liga ng mga Iskolar ng
Bayan and immensely proud to be a
Manobo.
In September 2016, schools of the
former University of the Philippines
Carl Angelo Arnaiz also died in the city
in a supposed firefight with arresting
authorities, 11 days after he went
missing and was last seen with 14-year-
old Reynaldo de Guzman in Cainta,
Rizal.
Last Sept. 5, the body of a boy,
identified by Eduardo Gabriel and
Lina de Guzman as that of their son
Reynaldo was found floating in a creek
in Brgy. San Roque, Gapan City, Nueva
Ecija with 28 stab wounds.
Kian is 54th young victim of Tokhang
Bishop David issued the statement
government Children’s Legal Rights and
Development Center claimed that it had
documented 54 cases of minors killed
amid the Duterte administration’s war
on drugs campaign.
In a media interview, the center’s
executive director Rowena Legaspi said
“Kian was actually the 54th case, so it’s
not an isolated case.”
According to Legaspi, most
youngsters were allegedly killed by
motorycle-riding vigilantes but there
September 2017 / Fortnightly – No. 18 • UK & Europe Edition
Lumad youth hold up a portrait of slain youth Obello Bay-ao
and a banner referencing his death with that of Kian Lloyd delos
Santos as they stand next to a mock coffin before marching to
Mendiola for a protest. Photo by Kathy Yamzon, Bayan-NCR
STTI Community Learning Centers Inc.
held a Bwalawan (Harvest) Festival.
Obello was a member of Talaingod’s
traditional dance group.
“We were the dance champions of
all of the participating lumad schools,”
Rorilyn said. “Obello was really good at
dancing. We are going to miss him in
this year’s competition. Then again, we
just miss him.”
Obello was always quick to help with
any work to be done, often the first to
volunteer without needing to be asked.
As his tribe adapted to the times,
so did he, quick to do both the tasks
traditionally assigned to both women
and men, his love for his community
Aside from what, by all indications,
should have been a bright future, Obello
were also cases similar to that of Delos
Santos, which involved authorities.
On Thursday, David urged residents
of his diocese to seek help with their
parish priest in seeking justice for the
victims of extrajudicial killings.
“If you are from South Caloocan,
Malabon, or Navotas, which are part of
my diocese and you want your stories
to be documented with the hope to
eventually file a case in court with
the help of volunteer lawyers at no
expense, please visit your parish priest,” believe in restorative justice? That’s the
the bishop said.
The Philippine National Police,
Department of Justice, and the Office
of the President earlier said that what
happened to Delos Santos was an
isolated case.
The Grade 11 student was
intentionally killed and the arrest of a
witness, who claimed that Delos Santos
was a drug runner, was only staged
“to conceal the crime (that the) police
officers have committed,” according to
the National Bureau of Investigation.
David, who took custody of one of the
witnesses to Delos Santos’ slay, said, “I
also left behind the young woman he was
betrothed to, another lumad student at
the high school.
“They always seem to be killing the
exceptionally talented ones, though at
the same time the Alamara/CAFGU
seem to be willing to kill any one of us
if they get the chance,” Rorilyn mused.
“What we really want is peace in our
community. Our schools are helping us
to develop as people. We just want to be
free from militarization and the threat
of these killings. I sometimes think they
won’t be happy until they kill us all.
When I learned about the killing of the
youth here in Manila because of the ‘war
on drugs,’ I easily could relate, because
they are killing us; they killed Obello
too,” she said. n Aya Santos, Sandugo (special
to InterAksyon) | September 14, 2017, 3:30 PM
think some of them (other government
agencies) have declared too soon that
these are isolated cases. They have not
yet heard the other cases.”
Also, the prelate maintained that
drug users and abusers could still be
reformed.
“Madalas sabihin na [It is often said
that] criminals cannot be reformed
What? Hindi ka na naniniwala
sa restorative justice? ‘Yon ang
pundasyon ng batas [You no longer
foundation of law],” he said.
“Some of them go wayward pero
kailangan ma-reform sila at maibalik
sa society ng tama. Hindi na natin ma-
reform ang patay,” said David.
[Some of them go wayward but
they need to be reformed and properly
returned to society. We could no longer
reform the dead.]
“My heart breaks when I hear (about)
killed people on a daily basis. Sobra
na ang pagdanak ng dugo [There has
been too much bloodshed already],”
he added. n Camille A. Aguinaldo,
InterAksyon | September 14, 2017, 5:19 PM