Journalists barred from press briefing in evacuation center

CMFR/PHILIPPINES — Police barred members of the media from an evacuation center for displaced indigenous people in Davao City on 25 January 2020. The media were there to cover a press briefing by human rights groups on an earlier incident involving alleged paramilitaries from Davao del Norte and Bukidnon who stormed the center and destroyed its gate and part of its fence supposedly to convince their relatives who were evacuees to return to their communities.

Davao City is some 980 kilometers south of Manila.

The police, under the orders of Davao Police Chief Col. Kirby John Kraft, locked down the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) evacuation center in Haran compound and prevented journalists from going in. Kraft justified the ban by saying they did not know if the situation insidethe center had eased after the tension between human rights (HR) groups and the aggressors.  

Save Our Schools (SOS) Network said in a Mindanews report that at around 9:30 am January 25, alleged members of the Almara paramilitary group armed with bladed weapons destroyed the fence and the gate of Haran compound. As of 12:00 noon, the police who were there had not arrested any of the attackers even if some were still in the premises.

In the same Mindanews report, Kraft said they did not recover any bladed weapon. He also told HR groups that instead of holding a media briefing, they should listen to the “other side” and allow the evacuees to leave and return to their communities with their relatives.

As of press time, the center was still hosting around 400 Lumad who had been forced out of their ancestral domain due to the militarization of their communities.

The incident happened ten days after the Davao Region Peace and Order Council ordered the closure of the center, a private facility run by the UCCP.

Meanwhile, the press briefing pushed through at around 1:30 pm. A few journalists who had managed to enter the site prior to the lockdown covered it.