IN PHOTOS: Lumad Bakwit School's moving-up ceremony
With pride and gratitude, 30 Lumad students graduated from junior high school last March 29.
In 2017, about 100 Lumad students, parents, and teachers mounted a Bakwit School in Metro Manila, a makeshift school for displaced indigenous children.
Bakwit is a colloquial term for evacuees. The Lumad, for instance, were forced to flee their homes following attacks – including those by state forces – on their schools and communities.
Save Our Schools Network, the host of the Lumad Bakwit School, has been reaching out to various institutions in the metropolis in the past few years to help displaced children continue their studies and to amplify the Lumad tribes' rallying call for education, ancestral lands, and self-determination, all of which are constitutional rights.
The Lumad Bakwit School Moving Up ceremony last March 29, 2019 is a testament to the significance of the Lumad struggle. Despite the destruction brought by Martial Law in Mindanao, 30 Lumad students successfully graduated from junior high school.
During the event, supporters belonging to various institutions from academic to religious stood as the parents of the students. The Lumad students were more than happy to have people such as UP Diliman Chancellor Michael Tan and Bayan Muna president Satur Ocampo give them their certificates and medals along with an auditorium full of supporters to cheer them on on their special day.
The Moving Up ceremony signifies the successes brought by the militant Lumad spirit in the form of Save Our Schools Network and ultimately, the need to stand firmly with Lumad schools.
As long as violence exists in the indigenous communities of Mindanao, the experience of having to bakwit will consume the Lumad youth’s childhoods for generations to come.
Read the full story on Rappler.com and Manila Today.
© 2019, Pau Villanueva. All rights reserved.