SAN FRANCISCO, Agusan del Sur (MindaNews / 27 January) – Charges of alarm and scandal will be filed against members of an alleged tribal group who illegally padlocked several establishments in Surigao City last Friday, January 24.
Lt. Col. Mariano Lukban, acting police chief of Surigao City, said that charges will be filed against 40 members of the Federal Tribal Group of the Philippines (FTGP), headed by Jorgeto Corpuz Santisas, also known as Datu Adlaw.
“What they did is not in accordance with the rule of law,” Lukban said in radio interview.
He added that several individuals went to the police station following the incident to file a complaint.
“The investigator had processed the documents needed in filing the different cases against Datu Adlaw’s group. All the evidences are being prepared to file the cases. What they did cause an alarm to the public,” Lukban said.
Rico “Datu Alinghian” Maca, secretary-general of the Indigenous Peoples Mandatory Representative (IPMR) Caraga Chapter, said the FTGP is “a bogus tribal group and that it is not recognized by the National Commission in Indigenous Peoples (NCIP).”
The group has reportedly recruited mostly non-Lumad members, charging a ₱1,200 membership fee, which they claim will be used to open a bank account at the Land Bank of the Philippines, promising members a ₱25,000 monthly allowance, Maca said.
In a Facebook post, lawyer Mark Tolentino pointed out that Santisas’s group should be charged with sedition and grave threat, and not just alarm and scandal.
“Sedition in the Philippines is a crime that involves acts that threaten the peace and order,” Tolentino, a resident of Cabadbaran City, said.
“They were preventing the execution of laws and the government from carrying out its functions. They were harassing public officials and government property. They even threatened the city mayor to chop off his head,” Tolentino added.
Santisas, who introduced himself as the supreme adviser of the FTGP and the provincial tribal chieftain of Surigao del Sur, asserted that “all lands in Surigao City and Surigao del Sur belong to their ancestral domain.”
Citing Republic Act 8371 or the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997, Santisas told RPN DXKS Surigao that the shops have been notified to secure a “land occupancy certificate” from the FTGP office, but they never complied with it prompting the members to lock down their establishments.
The Surigao City police exercised maximum tolerance during the dismantling of FTGP’s illegal checkpoint in Barangay Sabang, Surigao City last Friday morning.
City Mayor Paul Dumlao personally responded to the incident and invited the group’s leaders for a dialogue.
However, Bae Lourdes Infante, an FTGP official, refused to meet him in the open and instead demanded the mayor enter their compound.
Dumlao declined and left the area.
Following the standoff, police officers removed the tarpaulins used by the FTGP as barricades for their unauthorized checkpoint. (Chris V. Panganiban / MindaNews)