Professor Justice's Secret Files

Activism, Lumad, and Other Ethnic Minorities

Outcome-based education is not easy to do if the subject is about society and politics. There are also "21st century skills" that must be developed in the students. The objective is to prepare them for teamwork. They must also have fundamental life and professional skills they could apply. It is hard to develop those skills through books and movies. Emotional and social intelligence are not simply honed through observation, much less when we are only observing some producer's or director's media resource.

The world was our laboratory. That was my mindset. We can experiment with the world. It would even be less of a hassle if we are going to join other people's activities because all we have to do is attend, observe, ask questions, and practice some of our skills. We don't have to pay for organizing the event. We can freely experiment by showing up at the right place and at the right time.

Reading from history and books about the social sciences, we can evaluate current events from different points of view. Even subjects like religion or theology can be approached systematically, and we will find out that even among long-established belief systems, there exists sects or denominations that differ from the mainstream or orthodox belief.

At the same time, we certainly need to care for our marginalized people who are deprived of land, water, and other basic needs. We have to defend those whose lives are unlawfully harmed.

This was where I was coming from when, after having supported the Manilakbayan activity where I helped donate food and cash for the Lumad people who were in Manila to demand for the vindication of their rights to life and ancestral domain, I agreed to meet with some of its organizers from the League of Filipino Students (LFS) for other activities. Politically, they were mostly left-wing. I already know I was a bit conservative but it does not mean I hate helping the marginalized.

I invited some of them to discuss about Conflict Theory, which was one of the major views we teach in sociology together with Structural-Functionalism and Symbolic Interactionism. Conflict theory seem to be best explained by a leftist or someone familiar with communism. They discussed it together with the issue of the Lumad people, agrarian reform, tuition fee increase, preventing the K to 12 system, and other topics.

They also invited us to join in some of their activities. While I said I could not require my students to be there, I incentivized it by giving additional points to those who would interview the Lumad and the farmers who were part of the Manilakbayan. Even a year later, I still encouraged my students to go though I never mandated them to participate. Activism was an academic exercise, and I gave them guidelines to follow to keep them safe. I was even clear in saying that if there is any danger, if they are uncertain, or if the weather is not entirely nice, then they are most certainly free not to proceed. But it was still not required, just incentivized.

This would cause me some problems later.