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interview with Kerlan Fenagal continued from previous image caption...

"In one instance recently, two of our tribal leaders, Dionel Campos and Aurelio Sinzo, were killed in front of all their community in Surigao del Sur, the paramilitaries woke everyone up in the village very early in the morning, going into their houses to get them outside. More than 200 people including children were there, and they executed them in front of everybody. That morning they also killed the director of the agricultural school, one of the Lumad schools there, they slit his throat. This is all linked to coal mining. That same day, while they brought the dead bodies down to the evacuation centre, they did the ground-breaking for coal mining. Everyone from that area evacuated the same day, in fear for their lives.

67,000 hectares are targeted for coal mining. Ten coal mining companies are applying for concessions to mine.

The attacks are intensifying. They are closing our Lumad schools, they have already closed 86 of our schools. When we asked the soldiers why, they told us that the orders are coming from Malacañang (the presidential palace).

If you resist, if you are lucky they can trump up charges against you, or they can just kill you.

We have only two types of land under Philippine law, private land and public land. There is no provision for ancestral domains, for our collective ownership and land management. This legal inadequacy makes it easy for them to take our land, to sell concessions for logging and mining on our ancestral domains. It is easy for them to force us out legally. They have already given a lot of our land to mining corporations and commodity producers, for palm oil, bananas. They are destroying our beautiful rainforest and mountains, our beautiful people."

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Contained in galleries: Philippines: Lumad Bakwit graduation

interview with Kerlan Fenagal continued from previous image caption...<br />
<br />
"In one instance recently, two of our tribal leaders, Dionel Campos and Aurelio Sinzo, were killed in front of all their community in Surigao del Sur, the paramilitaries woke everyone up in the village very early in the morning, going into their houses to get them outside. More than 200 people including children were there, and they executed them in front of everybody. That morning they also killed the director of the agricultural school, one of the Lumad schools there, they slit his throat. This is all linked to coal mining. That same day, while they brought the dead bodies down to the evacuation centre, they did the ground-breaking for coal mining. Everyone from that area evacuated the same day, in fear for their lives.<br />
<br />
67,000 hectares are targeted for coal mining. Ten coal mining companies are applying for concessions to mine. <br />
<br />
The attacks are intensifying. They are closing our Lumad schools, they have already closed 86 of our schools. When we asked the soldiers why, they told us that the orders are coming from Malacañang (the presidential palace).<br />
<br />
If you resist, if you are lucky they can trump up charges against you, or they can just kill you.<br />
<br />
We have only two types of land under Philippine law, private land and public land. There is no provision for ancestral domains, for our collective ownership and land management. This legal inadequacy makes it easy for them to take our land, to sell concessions for logging and mining on our ancestral domains. It is easy for them to force us out legally. They have already given a lot of our land to mining corporations and commodity producers, for palm oil, bananas. They are destroying our beautiful rainforest and mountains, our beautiful people."

Sean T. Hawkey Photography