Foreword and Preface This Haran Report was engendered by two position papers, one from the Save Our Schools Network (SOS), and another from the “tribal leaders of Talaingod, Davao del Norte.” The SOS paper, which was submitted to the CHR on 15 July 2015, contained the “findings of a two-day fact-finding mission” conducted by the SOS and other parties on 13-14 July 2015, in Cateel, Davao Oriental. The SOS assailed the Department of Education (DepEd) for an “unjustified closure” of IP schools put up by the Salugpongan Ta Tanu Igkanugon Community Learning Centre, Inc. (STTICLCI). It also denounced the AFP’s civil-military operations within the Lumad ancestral domains where these schools were located. The SOS and other NGOs demanded the pull-out of AFP troops and the re-opening of the schools. At about the same time, the Commission also received a copy of a manifesto, entitled “Unified Declaration of Tribal Leaders of the Municipality of Talaingod, Davao del Norte.” The Ata-Manobo leaders declared that the STTICLC schools were being used for communist indoctrination of Lumad students, and took a position diametrically opposed to that of the SOS Network. They urged the DepEd to close the said schools. The opposing positions on the operation of the schools heightened with increasing reports of Lumad casualties in the escalating insurgency war between the government and the New People’s Army (NPA). Earlier in February, before the submission by SOS of its position paper, Lumad families had encamped in a compound owned by the United Church of Christ of the Philippines (UCCP) in Haran, Davao City. The leaders of the evacuees demanded the pull-out of government paramilitary forces from their land. To be sure, not all the Lumad who came down from their homes and encamped in the cities did so to escape the ravages of conflict. Some Lumad who went to Haran came from areas where there was no actual conflict, but only abject poverty. They were promised sacks of rice, kitchen utensils, farming implements, a few thousand pesos, and an audience with politicians and a boxing idol. Their vi