The rights of the Muslim Moro minority in the southern island of Mindanao continue to be violated in a number of key areas. State schools do not use Moro languages as medium of instruction to any significant extent (despite positive efforts such as the 2004 Basic Education Assistance for Mindanao), nor do most of the civil service and governmental positions require fluency in one of these languages, though they do demand fluency in Filipino. This language policy continues to create a very real obstacle to the full participation of the Moro Muslims in the country's public and political life, and they remain vastly under-represented in categories of educational attainment and in civil service employment and political representation. This in turn perpetuates the perception of the Moros as a disadvantaged group.

Members of this minority have already lost land because of government legislation and policies such as the extinguishment of their traditional land rights and the government-sponsored resettlement of mainly Christian Filipinos on the land they previously owned. Land redistribution programmes, such as the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, which in theory might have returned Moro land to members of the Muslim minority, appear to have mainly benefited Christian settlers.

The year 2008 saw an upsurge in fighting on Mindanao between government forces and the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), following the collapse of a peace accord in August. Hostilities resumed after the Supreme Court of the Philippines placed a temporary restraining order on the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain. In October the Court went on to declare the agreement between MILF and the Philippines government unconstitutional. With fighting spilling over to the islands of Jolo and Basilan in December, the National Disaster Coordinating Council said that more than 58,000 people remained in shelters in Mindanao and 163 people had died since August. Rights groups called for the authorities to urgently find ways of meeting the demand for autonomy of the Muslim community in order to put an end to the conflict.

Indigenous people in the Philippines, who come from over100 different ethnic groupings, account for approximately 16 per cent of the national population, with over 34 per cent of the total in Mindanao. In 2008 many suffered displacement from their homes and forced recruitment to the ranks of the various parties to the fighting.

The education of thousands of minority children in Mindanao was seriously affected by the ongoing clashes between government forces and MILF. Classes were repeatedly interrupted as many schools doubled as evacuation centres for families trying to escape the fighting.

Indigenous children lag behind majority children in terms of academic opportunities and performance. NGOs estimate that up to 70 per cent of indigenous youth left or never attended school because of the discrimination they experienced. The Department of Education continues to develop the Indigenous Peoples Curriculum, conceived in 2004, to embody the core values of indigenous people while adhering to basic education learning competencies.

At the time of writing a landmark bill was making its way through the House of Representatives that, if passed into law, will require the use of the mother tongue as a medium of instruction from Grades 1 to 6. The bill also provides for the teaching of Filipino and English as separate subjects before being used as primary media of instruction in high school.

In the Philippines indigenous land is recognized by the granting of Certificates of Ancestral Domain. At year's end the National Commission on Indigenous People, staffed by tribal members, had awarded certificates covering over 2.67 million acres of land claimed by indigenous people. However, such land can still be lost to development projects, provided a certificate of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) is obtained from indigenous peoples. Many groups claim to have been deceived in this process.

Canadian mining company Olympus Pacific Minerals was found to have not secured FPIC prior to exploration and drilling in the Binongan indigenous people's ancestral domain at Capcapo mountain, Abra, and entered into consultations with the concerned community in April 2008.

The Subanen, an indigenous people who live in small agricultural communities and practise shifting cultivation in the mountains of the Zamboanga peninsula of Mindanao, have seen their ancestral lands steadily encroached upon by logging and mining companies. Frustrated by lack of government action, the community invoked their traditional justice authority, the Gukom, which in May 2008 found the Canadian mining company TVI Pacific guilty of crimes against the Subanen. The Gukom ordered that TVI should leave the area and pay financial restitution. However, this decision has been ignored by both the government and TVI. The Subanen had taken their case to CERD in February 2007, calling for a halt to all mining operations in the area.

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