By KAREN ANN MACALALAD
Bulatlat
Members of the University of the Philippines-Diliman (UPD) community welcomed 2,900 national minorities in a Salubungan at dusk today, August 31, to support the Lakbayanis’ calls for peace, self-determination and rights over their ancestral lands.
The Salubungan program is part of the annual Lakbayan, a nationwide protest caravan that forwards the plight of the national minorities exacerbated by cases of militarization and destructive mining operations near their communities. The caravan had just come from Manila, where they marched and converged at the Bonifacio Shrine, and proceeded to a program in Mendiola near the Presidential Palace.
The Lakbayanis are staying in a kampuhan in UPD today until September 22, a day after the Martial Law commemoration protest.
UPD Chancellor Michael Tan hoped that the whole UP community can help in campaigning the national minorities’ struggles and demands to return on their communities, and will learn from what he called the visiting professors in the university.
