MANILA (UCAN): Education officials in the Philippines ordered the closure of 55 schools catering to the Lumad indigenous in Davao, Mindanao, for allegedly teaching “left-leaning ideologies.”
 
In a June 12 order, the schools, run by the nonprofit Salugpongan Ta’ Tanu Igkanogon Community Learning Center Inc., were denied permits to operate for the upcoming 2019-20 school year.
 
The suspension was issued upon a recommendation made by national security adviser, Hermogenes Esperon, a retired general.

MANILA (UCAN): The Philippines’ Department of Justice has ordered the filing of charges against two ranking military personnel and several members of a militia group for the 2011 murder of Father Fausto Tentorio Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) in Mindanao (Sunday Examiner, 30 October 2011).
 
The Italian priest, who had dedicated himself to the literacy and development of the Lumad people since 1978, was shot dead inside his church compound in Arakan in the hinterlands of North Cotabato on 17 October 2011.

MANILA (UCAN): On November 11, the archbishop of Manila, Luis Cardinal Tagle, made his widely publicised visit to displaced tribal people from Mindanao and called for an end to the military occupation of their schools and communities.

On the very same day, a commander from a military-backed paramilitary militia defended the execution of the principal of an indigenous children’s school before the congress.