Mortars fired near Datu Piang school as classes go on

DATU PIANG, Maguindanao (MindaNews/22 June) – Teachers Tatway Ebrahim, Leslie Tuvie and Balabagan Mucalam were walking towards their classrooms at the Datu Gumbay Piang Elementary School during the morning recess Sunday when a deafening explosion startled them.
“They’ve been firing since before 9 a.m.,” the teachers said, referring to the military whose firebase is just a stone’s throw away.

It is nearly 10 a.m. and on this Sunday morning, four howitzers had been fired within five minutes. How many had been fired in an hour, none of the teachers could say.

Classes in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao are held Sundays to Thursdays.
Outside, at the corner of the school some 25 meters from the firebase itself, children, mostly boys, covered their ears as they watched the firing. “Bazooka, bazooka, boom,” they said.

Father Romeo Saniel, OMI, president of Notre Dame Midsayap College, spent Friday night in Datu Piang with teachers and students. As they were preparing to rest for the next day’s distribution of relief goods, they could hear the sound of 105 and 155 mm howitzers exploding “like a 21 gun salute,” he said, “every 15 to 30 minutes.”

The elementary students, their teachers said, “cannot concentrate well.” There is no telling when the next 105 or 155 mm howitzer will be fired. Sometimes, a teacher said, fright would make a student pee in class.

But fright could lead to death, too.

On April 20, students at the Jamaatul Jabar Madrasah, near the Datu Saudi Uy Ampatuan Compound evacuation center in Datu Piang saw how Ustadz Ayub Guiamlod, 53, fell to the floor trembling upon hearing the second round of artillery fired at around 10 that morning from the command post of the Army’s 54th Infantry Battalion.

Guiamlod died from cardiac arrest.

“Ang iba sanay na” (the rest are used to it), said another teacher.

Noraisa, 12, a Grade V student from Dado Elementary School, told MindaNews she has gotten used to the sound of artillery fire.

“But getting used to it is not normal,” said another teacher.

Akmad Guiamblang, principal of the Duaminanga Elementary School, said teachers cannot warn their students about the artillery firing because they are not given prior notice by the military.

Aside from hosting thousands of evacuees, Datu Gumbay Piang Elementary School (DGPES) also houses 10 “bakwit schools” from the villages of Dado, Duaminanga, Montay, Alonganen, Masigay, Balong, Ambadao, Liong, Balanaken, Kalipapa.

As of June 21, 2009, Datu Piang’s evacuees number 6,117 families or 29,746 individuals.

Since residents of these villages are still in the evacuation centers, classes in their elementary schools or primary schools are held here at the DGPES. Visitors will know what classes are going on by the chalk mark outside the door that says Dado-V or Duaminanga-1 (Grade 5, Dado Elementary School or Grade 1, Dumaninga Elementary School).

Classes started, along with the rest of the public schools, on June 1.

DGPES has 30 classrooms now shared by 2,001 students, only 597 of them from the DGPES itself, records from the Department of Education’s District 1 Planning Division showed. (Carolyn O. Arguillas/MindaNews)