Moro
children in Barangay Patadon, Kidapawan City show support for the
MOA-AD as a caravan passes along the national highway on 18 March 2009.
MindaNews photo by RUBY THURSDAY MORE
In
March 2009, the Commission on Human Rights conducts an investigation
into the rise of summary executions in Davao City victimizing suspected
criminals, many of them alleged drug pushers. By then, at least 800
persons had been summarily executed in the city since 1998 by a band
referred to as the “Davao Death Squad.” MindaNews photo by GLOCELITO C.
JAYMA
Meanwhile,
human rights groups in Davao City protest the killings not only of
petty criminals but also of political activists, peasant and labor
leaders. MindaNews photo by TOTO LOZANO
Children
in full costume perform the “sagayan,” a Meranaw war dance, during a
parade in downtown Marawi City in April 2009. MindaNews photo by BOBBY
TIMONERA
The
New People’s army in Mindanao claimed in 2009 to have captured in
separate encounters seven government soldiers, including 1Lt Vicente
Cammayo, company commander of the 11th Special Forces Company. They were
freed after negotiations on June 5. MindaNews photo by RUBY THURSDAY
MORE
Fifty-eight
persons were killed in a remote area in the municipality of Ampatuan in
Maguindanao on November 23, 2009 in what is considered as the worst
pre-election violence in the country. Thirty-two of the victims were
media workers who accompanied the convoy of relatives bound for the
Commission on Elections provincial office in Shariff Aguak town to file
the certificate of candidacy of Buluan Vice Mayor Esmael “Toto”
Mangudadatu. The latter was challenging his former allies, the
Ampatuans, by running for governor of Maguindanao. MindaNews photo by
FROILAN GALLARDO
Law
enforcers unearth a huge cache of firearms and ammunitions not far from
the Ampatuan mansions in Shariff Aguak town in Maguindanao on 11
December 2009, days after the infamous Ampatuan Massacre. Several more
were unearthed in neighboring areas. MindaNews photo by FROILAN GALLARDO
Balangay
replicas depart from Davao City en route to Davao del Sur on 19 April
2010. The Balangay Expedition, composed mostly of the Philippine Everest
Team, retraced the routes of ancient sea-faring Filipinos in their
travels in many parts of Asia using only the wooden boat. A number of
balangay were excavated in Butuan in the 1970s, one of them traced to
the year 320 A.D. after carbon-dating. MindaNews photo by RENE B.
LUMAWAG
Residents
of South Cotabato stage a protest against mining on 10 June 2010 as
they hailed the passage a day earlier of the provincial government’s
Environment Code banning open-pit mining. A foreign mining firm has been
eyeing to extract huge amounts of gold and copper deposits in the
municipality of Tampakan and neighboring areas using open-pit mining.
MindaNews photo by TOTO LOZANO