RIVERMAN’S VISTA | The Rivers of Katungod

QUEZON CITY (MindaNews / 19 July 2026) – Five years ago, July 19, 2021, thirty Lumad students marched in graduation. The Bantayog ng mga Bayani hosted their ceremony. Their Bakwit School at UP Diliman had endured.

Eleven finished Grade 12 despite displacement and pandemic. Chricelyn Empong vowed to “come home to defend our land.” Datu Benito Bay-ao thanked the students’ many supporters. I was there and called their graduation an inspiration. The graduates danced before the Wall of Remembrance.

That march was never a surrender. It was a promise to return and rebuild.

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑲𝒂𝒕𝒖𝒏𝒈𝒐𝒅 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒇𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆

Five years later, that promise faces its test. KATUNGOD 2026 gathered to answer it. The conference was convened by the Institute of Human Rights of the UP College of Law, Kinaiyahan, the Mindanao Climate Justice Resource Facility, and Panaad Network.

Mindanao knows the weight of unfinished justice. The Talaingod 13 carry that weight today. Their case shadows the Bakwit graduates’ homecoming.

Delegates filled Malcolm Theater at UP Diliman. The date marked two years since the conviction. Over 300 came from Mindanao and beyond. Lumad and Moro leaders sat with bishops and lawyers. Together they presented a people’s assessment of Mindanao.

The timing carried its own pointed message. President Marcos delivers his fifth SONA on July 27. Bishop Daniel Palicte named the uncomfortable truth. Dynasties eye Mindanao as the decisive 2028 vote.

Yet Mindanao’s deepest wounds remain unaddressed. Palicte listed them plainly for the delegates. Rights violations, disasters, hunger, and stalled Bangsamoro peace.

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑻𝒂𝒍𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒐𝒅 𝒊𝒏𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒆

Recall how the Talaingod case began. November 2018 brought a solidarity mission to Talaingod. Volunteers evacuated Lumad students facing paramilitary threats. The state saw kidnapping where communities saw rescue. Tagum City’s court convicted thirteen of child abuse.

The thirteen include Satur Ocampo, France Castro, and Salugpongan schools director Meggie Nolasco. It was their case and Nolasco’s interviews that made me commit to help with the Lumad schools.

Castro said the Child Protection Act was weaponized. Helping and caring deserve gratitude, she insisted. Students themselves testified in their teachers’ defense.

Angelika Moral gave the conference its heartbeat. The Lumad youth recounted years of paramilitary harassment. She declared herself living proof of her teachers’ innocence.

Atty. Carol Kay Paquera reframed the militarization question. She called it “corporate clearing” rather than counterinsurgency. Resource extraction drives the assault on ancestral domains. She demanded the dismantling of paramilitary groups. Lumad survival, she said, is itself resistance.

The numbers behind this case wound deeply. Over 200 Lumad schools have closed since 2016. Thousands of Indigenous children lost their classrooms. Fr. Raymond Ambray asked what society prosecutes teachers.

𝑷𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒇𝒖𝒍 𝒎𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒂𝒈𝒆 𝒃𝒚 𝑾𝒂𝒍𝒅𝒆𝒏 𝑩𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒐

Walden Bello delivered the conference’s sharpest indictment. The sociologist called the Talaingod case outrageous lawfare. He placed it within a wider repressive pattern. He cited the CERNET and Frenchie Mae Cumpio cases.

Behind such prosecutions, he argued, stands the military. Both lawfare and counterinsurgency “undermine the rule of law.” He likened the AFP to a “thought police.” He urged its return to defending against external threats.

Bello declared: “The AFP is a state within a state.” “Civilian control over the military is a myth,” he said. The greatest threat to democracy, he argued, is elsewhere. “It is the Armed Forces of the Philippines.”

Accountability was another thread running through Katungod. Atty. Arvin Lopez traced impunity across administrations. Justice, he reminded everyone, cannot be partisan.

Prof. Tirmizy Abdullah widened the Mindanao lens further. Marawi’s rehabilitation remains painfully unfinished today. Large development projects expand across Moro lands. BARMM elections risk becoming a mere political exercise. Peace, he said, must be measured by justice.

𝑨 𝒅𝒆𝒄𝒍𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒐𝒇 𝒔𝒐𝒍𝒊𝒅𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒚

The conference closed with a People’s Declaration. It asserted the marginalized sectors’ right to self-determination. Indigenous defense of territory preserved our ecological wealth. Solidarity and self-determination remain rights worth honoring.

The legal fight now moves toward higher courts. Delegates urged DepEd to reinstate the Lumad schools. Mindanawons especially must claim this struggle as ours.

Justice for the Talaingod 13 means justice for Mindanao. The appellate court affirmed the conviction last November. A motion for reconsideration now awaits resolution. Institutions, parishes, and networks must learn this case. International attention through UCAN News widens the circle.

Rivers gather strength from many small streams. Our solidarity gathers strength the same way. Let it flow until the verdict is overturned. Let it carry the thirteen safely home.

Somewhere in Mindanao, the 2021 graduates keep their vow. Their teachers await vindication before the courts. Justice will be their truest graduation gift.

(Dean Antonio Gabriel La Viña is from Cagayan de Oro and is a professor of law, philosophy, politics, governance in several universities, including in Mindanao. He has been a human rights lawyer for 36 years. He is currently the managing partner of La Viña Zarate and Associates, a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, and Chair of the Jurisprudence and Legal Philosophy Department of the Philippine Judicial Academy. He is founding president of the Movement Against Disinformation and the founding chair of the Mindanao Climate Justice Resource Facility and the Mindanao Center for Scholarships, Sports, and Spirituality.)