Activists and education advocates have raised alarm over a Court of Appeals (CA) decision upholding the convictions of progressive lawmakers Satur Ocampo and France Castro, along with 11 Lumad educators, collectively known as the “Talaingod 13.”
The CA decision, dated November 27 and received by the defendants on December 17, affirmed a July 2024 ruling by the Tagum City Regional Trial Court, which found sufficient basis for allegations that the Talaingod 13 exploited students at the Salugpongan Ta Tanu Ingkanogan Community Learning Center.
In a statement emailed to Edge Davao, the militant Save Our Schools (SOS) Network claimed that the ruling sets a dangerous precedent by criminalizing humanitarian work in Indigenous communities.
The SOS Network said the ruling unfairly targets individuals who stepped forward to teach, protect, and care for Indigenous children in communities historically neglected by the State.
“Lumad schools did not arise out of defiance of the law or the State. They arose because the State abandoned indigenous communities and neglected its obligation to provide education, while at the same time enabling the dispossession of their ancestral lands,” the group stated.
According to the group, for decades, Talaingod and other Mindanao communities were systematically excluded from public education.
“For decades, Lumad communities in Talaingod and across Mindanao were denied meaningful access to basic education. Public schools were distant, inaccessible, or entirely absent. Teachers were not deployed. Indigenous children were structurally excluded from the public education system, not as an accident of geography, but as a consequence of persistent neglect,” it said.
The SOS Network described the ruling as part of a broader lawfare strategy, criminalizing humanitarian acts while ignoring structural injustices, militarization, and environmental destruction.
Human rights advocates, including Walden Bello, said the decision effectively turns child protection into a criminal offense, punishing those who acted to safeguard Lumad youth while leaving state failures unaddressed.
The organization warned that if the precedent stands, future emergencies in indigenous communities may be met with fear instead of solidarity, threatening the survival of community-led schools and the education of Indigenous children.
SOS reiterated that Lumad schools exist because Indigenous children were denied access to public education, and volunteer teachers acted out of necessity and collective responsibility.
“To punish those who answered this calling, while land dispossession, militarization, and impunity persist, is a profound injustice with lasting consequences not only for educators, but for entire communities struggling to survive. If this precedent stands, future emergencies will be met not with solidarity or protection, but with fear. Care will retreat. Classrooms will empty. And the cost will be borne once again by Indigenous children,” the group said.
