Bayan-GL condemned the arrest, “targeting members of organizations actively pursuing the call for genuine land reform and national industrialization.”
Among those arrested is a nursing mother who was tending to her two-month-old baby in a hospital when arrested in Oriental Mindoro.
A Lumád leader from White Culaman village in Bukidnon just wants to return to the bucolic life, when there were no soldiers to ruin the peace.
The Philippine Army reportedly has a list of 67 people set to be arrested, which include tribal leaders and other civilians in Bukidnon.
Asked for an official definition of “neutralization,” DND officials, citing another joint DND-DILG memorandum, said that it is “any counteraction intended to render any subject ineffective or inoperative using reasonable force such as physical restraint and similar acts.” DND said that the term “render ineffective” might include killing if it is “reasonable.”
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