Kalipunan ng mga Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas (KAMP)

The hostage taking in Prosperidad, Agusan del Sur involving armed Manobos may have ended without casualties among the Dep Ed officials, students and teachers they held for six days, but the question remains as to why such armed groups exist in the hinterlands and why the Armed Forces have failed to rein them in.

We know the group responsible for this crime are members of the Lumad paramilitary group called Lumadnong Pakigbisog sa Caraga or LUPACA. Its leader is Mantimbangan Perez, also known as the Ondo Perez who is now in jail for leading another hostage taking of 79 civilians in 2009.

The group has been notorious for spreading terror for decades, so notorious that they were mentioned in a report by the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Indigenous Issues as one of the many paramilitary groups formed by the AFP that resulted to human rights violations in the communities. The report mentioned one of their atrocities in 1998 that involving the death of a lumad and the evacuation of 22 families in the Prosperidad, Agusan del Sur.

Even after the UN's report, this group led by the Perez brothers continues to reign terror as they work with the AFP's Eastern Mindanao Command for its counterinsurgency campaign under its Task Force Gantangan.

But the danger of the AFPs using paramilitary groups is now shown to the public. With the group's action of taking civilians and minors hostage, they showed their arrogance and abuse of power. They endangered the lives of civilians and show no respect to human rights or to rule of law.

Their actions show they are no less than criminals, or private armies of the Ampatuans. These groups are monsters created by the AFP that are dangerous once let loose on communities.

The government should not just heaped praise for freeing the hostages, as long as these monsters they bred continue to evade the rule of law, and as long as they sow terror on civilians.

In fact, various indigenous paramilitary and vigilante groups supported by the AFP Eastern Mindanao Command thrive in Lumad communities in Mindanao like the Bagani Tribal Force, Bungkatol Liberation Front (BULIF), Alimaong, and the Alamara. Their existence belies the AFP's claim that they are now putting stress on human rights in the name of peace and development.

This is the demand of Kalumaran that the Aquino government must disband paramilitary groups, stop the AFP's recruitment and arming of such groups as they disturbe the civilian Lumad, peasants and Moro.

As long as this reign of terror and militarization continues in Lumad communities, we doubt the sincerity of the Aquino government that they are a government of change.