#title:CPDF empathizes with Lumad refugees<br>
@@@@@<h1>CPDF empathizes with Lumad refugees</h1><!-- Cordillera People's Democratic Front, Simon "Ka Filiw" Naogsan Sr.,  Spokesperson,  August 30, 2009 </em><br><br>
The Cordillera People's Democratic Front (CPDF) deplores the massive military operations in Surigao del Sur that have displaced thousands of Lumad national minorities. The Lumads were forced to flee their homes and seek refuge in the Diocesan Pastoral Center in Tandag, Surigao del Sur. Hundreds of schoolchildren were forced to stop their schooling and join the evacuation.<br>
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Troops of the 58th IB have imposed restrictions on the amount of food that can be purchased by residents. Each family is only allowed five kilos of rice each day. For rice purchases larger than five kilos, the military requires the following documents: community tax certificate, barangay clearance, permits from the mayor and the Land Transportation Office, the official receipt for the rice purchase, and a list of names of all the persons who will consume the rice.<br>
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National minorities often suffer the most from massive military operations in the countryside. Their political, economic, social, and cultural rights are often disregarded by the military and the government. Many communities in the Cordillera have suffered and will suffer from the same fate as the national minorities in Surigao del Sur. Since 1974, villages in the Cordillera have been forcibly relocated in an effort to deny NPA guerillas a mass base, and to give way to the construction of destructive government projects such as the Chico dams.<br>
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Early this year, Tingguian schoolchildren in Lacub, Abra were forced to hold classes under the sun and without their desks and chairs because troops of the 41st IB Reengineered Special Operations Team (RSOT) occupied the daycare center. In 2007, classes in the Tamboan Elementary School in Besao, Mountain Province for an extended period of time because troops of the 54th IB occupied the school and used it as a barracks.<br>
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The US-Arroyo regime pays lip service to childrens' right to education and the national minorities' rights to their ancestral lands. This is belied by the continuing military operations in the hinterlands of Mindanao and the Cordillera. The message is clear: GMA and her fascist generals will do anything to grab for themselves the resource-rich ancestral lands of national minorities.<br>
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The CPDF stands in unity with other national minorities in the struggle for self-determination and national liberation and democracy. Together we will thwart all efforts to plunder our ancestral lands. With the rest of the Filipino people, we will build a new social order that would promote and protect the rights of the national minorities and provide for the basic education of the youth.<br>
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Rebolusyon Kayet!<br>
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