“By sustaining this conviction, the State codifies a chilling precedent.”
CAGAYAN DE ORO — Indigenous peoples and human rights advocates reiterated their demands for the reversal of the guilty verdict handed down to several individuals accused of child abuse after their rescue mission in Talaingod, Davao del Norte, in 2018.
The motion for reconsideration is pending before the appellate court in Cagayan de Oro.
At the KATUNGOD Conference held on July 15 at the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Law, participants denounced the Tagum City court’s decision exactly two years ago convicting 13 individuals, including former Makabayan bloc lawmakers France Castro and Satur Ocampo, as well as Lumad volunteer teachers—collectively known as the Talaingod 13—for violating Section 10a of Republic Act No. 7610 (Special Protection of Children Against Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act).
Rights advocates stressed that the judgment criminalizes acts of care as members of a national solidarity mission only responded to the situation of the Lumad students and teachers who faced paramilitary harassment and forced closure of Lumad schools in Talaingod under the Salugpungan Ta Tanu Igkanuon Community Learning Center. This educational institution was branded by the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) and the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) as a school established by Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), a claim refuted by advocates.
In November 2025, the 21st Division of the Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction. However, two staff of the ACT Teachers Party-list included in the 13 accused were acquitted.
“By sustaining this conviction, the State codifies a chilling precedent. It transforms the act of human rights accompaniment, humanitarian rescue, and vocational teaching to a punishable offense,” lawyer Carol Kay Paquera, secretary-general of the Union of People’s Lawyers in Mindanao (UPLM) and a legal counsel of the Talaingod 13, said in her speech.
Ocampo said that former President Rodrigo Duterte had direct participation in the case, linking the unfinished peace negotiations to the actual incident in Talaingod.
He said that he called twice Duterte’s trusted aide Bong Go, who is now a senator, when they were stopped by state security forces during the Talaingod tragedy. Go answered the first call but he allegedly no longer responded during the second time when Ocampo asked him to tell the president to intervene.
In her speech, Angelika Moral, a member of the Blaan tribe and one of the Lumad students rescued, recounted claims that only the teachers were forced to leave the school during the incident. She said that they chose to go with their teachers who were entrusted by their parents to serve as guardians.
“Maybe if they left us in Talaingod that day, we did not know if we would survive or make it back home alive to our parents,” Moral said in Filipino.
Angelika Moral, one of the rescued Lumad students during the Talaingod incident in 2018, speaks in the open forum during the KATUNGOD Conference held at the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Law on July 15, 2026. Photo courtesy of Altermidya
Lawyer Arvin Dexter Lopoz, UPLM spokesperson, said that many Lumad opted to continue their studies after the closure of Salugpongan schools, traveling on foot for two days from Talaingod to Maco, Davao de Oro, as they wanted to transfer to Community Technical College of Southeastern Mindanao (CTCSM), also a school that offered Indigenous education.
However, more than 200 Lumad schools were forcibly closed under the Duterte administration that affected thousands of Lumad, according to the Save Our Schools (SOS) Network, an alliance of various organizations advocating for children’s right to education.
Read:Groups urge gov’t to prioritize reopening of Lumad schools in Mindanao
Beverly Longid, co-convenor of the Defend Talaingod 13 Network, maintained that the case is part of a systemic attack against human rights defenders. “Indigenous communities continue to experience militarization, displacement, threats, and other violations while asserting their rights to ancestral lands and self-determination. If Indigenous Peoples continue to face such attacks, what more will happen to those who stand with them?” she said in a statement. (DAA)
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