Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Party-list Rep. France Castro and former Bayan Muna Party-list Rep. Satur Ocampo will look to reverse the decision of the Tagum City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 2 after convicting them for trumped-up charges of child abuse on July 15.
This comes only less than a month after Castro’s decision to run for Senate in the 2025 Midterm Elections.
The decision, dated July 3, was released six years after the case was filed in 2018. Castro, Ocampo, and the 11 other advocates were said to have violated Republic Act 7610 or the Special Protection of Children Against Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act.
They are currently mulling over whether to ask the trial court to reconsider its decision or elevate it directly to the Court of Appeals.
“This is a clear miscarriage of justice, and we will strongly question this decision in all venues possible,” Ocampo and Castro wrote in a joint statement posted by the ACT Teachers Partylist on July 15.
In November 2018, the group conducted a solidarity mission in Talaingod, Davao del Norte to rescue Lumad students and teachers following the militarization of the Salugpungan Ta ‘Tanu Igkanogon Community Learning Center. Lumad schools have faced militarization threats due to allegations of being “a training ground for communist rebels.”
The court decision claimed that they transported the Lumads in an “area of encounter by the military and the New People’s Army ,” thus endangering the security of the students who were minors.
“Nakahanda na akong humarap sa ating taong-bayan na talagang wala po kaming ginawang child abuse. Hindi po kami nang-abuso dahil isa nga sa advocacy namin etong edukasyon ng ating kabataan at Lumad, etong mga marginalized sector,” Castro said in a press conference.
The 2018 military encounter with the Lumad advocates was just one of the persistent attacks directed toward the indigenous group and their advocates. In July 2023, Rowe John Libot, a Lumad volunteer teacher was slain by the 37th Infantry Battalion of the Armed Forces of the Philippines while on the way to a medical and food caravan in General Santos City.
Along with Castro and Ocampo, the eleven other convicted were Ma. Eugenia Victoria Nolasco, Jesus Madamo, Meriro Poquita, Maricel Andagkit, Marcial Rendon, Marianie Aga, Jenevive Paraba, Nerhaya Talledo, Concepcion Ibarra, Nerfa Awing, and Wingwing Daunsay. Some of them were volunteer Lumad teachers during that time.
Aside from imprisonment for four to six years, the convicted are also ordered to pay a joint sum of P20,000 for civil indemnity and moral damages to each of the supposed victims.
ACT Teachers, Bayan Muna, and other progressive groups under the Makabayan coalition mobilized in front of the Commission on Human Rights after the decision was released.
“We persist in our call that those who ordered and orchestrated the attacks against the Lumad schools, specifically former President Rodrigo Duterte and the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, and endangered the lives of indigenous children must be brought to justice,” Castro and Ocampo’s joint statement read. ●
