INDIGENOUS PEOPLES NEWS

COTABATO CITY — The Ministry of Indigenous Peoples' Affairs (MIPA-BARMM) recently assessed and evaluated ancestral domains in the province in an activity held on September 18 at the San Isidro Labrador Parish in North Upi, Maguindanao.

With the theme, “Convergence for Empowerment Towards United Indigenous People in the Bangsamoro Government," the MIPA convened the Indigenous Peoples Mandatory Representatives (IPMR), tribal leaders, project officers from different areas in Maguindanao, and other stakeholders.

MAGUINDANAO --- There is a makeshift school in Senamfledon area in Barangay Looy in South Upi town in this province that needs help.

Children there hold classes in a makeshift shelter, a virtual ramshackle, where Grades 1 to 4 pupils are cramped together during school days.

The school seemed more of an evacuation center for conflict-stricken children.

It was established on a land donated by an ethnic Teduray community leader sympathetic to impoverished peasant families in Senamfledon, located on a highland in Barangay Looy.

MAGUINDANAO --- Gunmen killed another non-Moro Teduray timuay and his son in an ambush Wednesday night in Ampatuan town in this province.

Timuay (chieftain) Orlando Santos and his son, Michael, residents of Barangay Saniag in Ampatuan town, died from bullet wounds sustained in the attack.

A third victim, Kimboy Fernalino, who was wounded in the ambush, is now confined at the Maguindanao provincial hospital in nearby Shariff Aguak town.