Information Gathering On 23 September 2015, CHR Chairperson Jose Luis Martin C. Gascon, Commissioner Roberto Eugenio T. Cadiz and Commissioner Leah TanodraArmamento met with the UCCP Bishops and IP tribal leaders and support groups, conducted an art session for Lumad children, and engaged the women in conversation. UCCP’s Bishop Hamuel Tequis clarified that the UCCP’s involvement with the “evacuee” IPs is limited to providing the physical space, the “zone of peace,” that is, the UCCP Haran Compound. The management of the Compound, including the clinic, was entrusted to support groups. Supplies came from different organizations, including the City Government of Davao, which provided medical supplies. The Commission received, gathered, and studied position papers on Lumad issues from various organizations, as well as official reports of HR violations affecting the Lumad. Public hearings were conducted on 24-25 September 2015 at the Apo View Hotel in Davao City. Prior to the public hearings, the Commission en banc also held a dialogue with Lumad victims and support groups at the CHR Central Office on 18 Sept 2015. Material for this Report includes separate field investigations, dialogs, and fact-finding missions accomplished by the CHR’s offices in Region XI, X and XIII. “Evacuation” to the Haran Compound HR violations and abuses reportedly drove hundreds of Lumad to evacuate to the UCCP Compound in Haran, one of several “sanctuaries and zones of peace open to all people” declared by the UCCP’s Council of Bishops in 1990.7 The National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) identified the evacuees as members of the Ata-Manobo tribe from Barangays Palma Gil, Dagohoy, and Sto. Niño, in Talaingod; Barangay Gupitan in Kapalong; and Barangay San Jose, in Santo Tomas, all in Davao del Norte, within the Pantarong Range, known as Mindanao’s Central Cordillera, and identified as a mineralrich area. The tribe occupies 114,000 hectares of land covered by a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT).8 The Ata-Manobo tribe is divided into at least four organizations: the Katusagda from Santo Tomas; the Ammado from Kapalong; the Salugpongan Ti Tanu Igkanogon (Salugpongan) from Talaingod; and the Talakayan, also from Talaingod. 7 Testimony of Rev. Gidol, TSN dated 24 September 2015 – A.M. Session, pp. 8-9. 8 Mindanews, Gov’t flaunts five “high interest” mining sites in Mindanao, 27 October 2007, accessed from http://www.mindanews. com/c87-mining/2007/10/27/govt-flaunts-five-qhigh-interestq-mining-sites-in-mindanao/. See also, Indigenous Voices in Asia, Philippines: Support to Mindanao people’s defense of land, environment, urged, 27 May 2014, accessed fromhttp://iva.aippnet.org/ philippines-support-to-mindanao-peoples-defense-of-land-environment-urged/. 3