Published February 16, 2021, 8:09 PM
Amid the controversies that hound the “rescue operation” involving Lumad minors, the University of San Carlos (USC) on Tuesday, Feb. 16, called on the parties concerned to focus on the children and listen to their plight.
USC president Fr. Narciso Cellan, Jr., in an interview over DZBB, said that in the middle of all speculations on the supposed “rescue” operations is the Lumad children who were possibly traumatized by the incident which happened on Feb. 15 at the USC Talamban Campus in Cebu.
“Let’s listen to the voices of the children,” Cellan said. “This is their story, this is not the story of anybody else but the story of children who are victimized by war and armed conflicts in their homes and they are trying to find a way to receive education, to have a better shot at their future,” he added.
The Philippine National Police (PNP) accused on Monday, Feb, 15, some groups of twisting the story behind what it called as a rescue operation of 21 members of an indigenous group inside the retreat house of the University of San Carlos (USC) in Cebu City.
The Societies Verbi Divini (SVD) Philippines Southern Province and the University of San Carlos (USC) have raised concern over the alleged rescue operation conducted by the Police Regional Office 7 (PRO-7) inside the Talamban campus of USC.
Police arrest students, teachers in Cebu City Lumad school
Feb 15, 2021 6:03 PM PHT
John Sitchon
Central Visayas Police, with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), entered the University of San Carlos-Talamban Campus (USC), and took at least 26 Lumad students and teachers into their custody on Monday, February 15.
The police called it a rescue operation.
The operation took place at around 11:30 am at the university’s retreat house where the IP (indigenous people) took residence in makeshift educational centers known as Lumad Bakwit Schools since March of last year.
A video posted by Save Our Schools Network shows children staying at USC screaming as police forcefully take them away.