On the evening of September 30, 2025, blood once again stained the soil of Maguindanao del Sur.
Nel Lupos, a 60-year-old Teduray elder and former barangay kagawad, was brutally slain in Barangay Limpongo, Datu Hofer. Harassed, cornered, beaten unconscious, and then beheaded—his life was taken in a manner so cruel it should shake not only the Bangsamoro but the entire nation to its core.
That night, his family, with the help of the military, retrieved his lifeless body. By morning, they had also recovered his severed head—an image that no community should ever have to endure, and a grim reminder of how savagely Indigenous Peoples are targeted.
This is not an isolated act of violence. This is part of a disturbing, systematic pattern. Nel Lupos is the 86th Teduray leader killed in recent years—victims of a cycle of land conflict, displacement, and impunity that Indigenous Peoples (IPs) in the Bangsamoro have long endured. For every Teduray or Lambangian leader murdered, an entire community loses a voice, a defender, and a symbol of resistance to erasure.
Broken Promises, Bloodied Ground
Only weeks ago, the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs (MIPA), in partnership with The Asia Foundation, convened a seminar in Davao City on “Advancing Indigenous Peoples’ Rights.” Policemen, IP leaders, and public officials pledged to uphold the Bangsamoro Indigenous Peoples’ Act. Speeches were made, commitments were signed, promises were broadcast.
Yet here we are: another Teduray leader slaughtered. Another family torn apart. Another community terrorized.
Words do not protect people. Workshops do not stop bullets. Pledges on paper mean nothing if Teduray farmers can be dragged from their fields and decapitated in broad daylight.
A War Over Ancestral Domain
The killings began when Non-Moro Indigenous Peoples asserted their ancestral domain after the passage of the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL). Land—Fusaka Inged—is at the heart of this violence. Instead of ensuring security for Indigenous communities, the BOL’s promise of autonomy has been weaponized by armed groups who see IPs as obstacles to control and expansion.
It is not enough for BARMM leaders to issue condolences. It is not enough for national officials to shrug and call these killings “clashes” or “land disputes.” The systematic beheading, execution, and displacement of Indigenous leaders is not merely a local conflict—it is an atrocity, an ongoing assault against a vulnerable people who have lived on these lands for generations.
Silence is Complicity
How many more Teduray leaders must die before the state acknowledges this for what it is—ethnic cleansing in slow motion? How many more widows and orphans must be made before government officials act decisively to secure Teduray lands and prosecute their killers?
The Philippine government, the Bangsamoro leadership, the security sector, and the international community cannot continue to hide behind statements of “monitoring” while tribal blood is spilled week after week.
Seminars and symbolic gestures will not shield Indigenous Peoples from bullets and blades. What is needed is urgent, visible, uncompromising action:
- Full-scale investigation and prosecution of the killers of Nel Lupos and the dozens of other Teduray leaders murdered in recent years.
- Deployment of real, sustained security measures in ancestral domains, not token patrols after a killing.
- Recognition and respect of Indigenous land rights, not just in law but in practice, to end the root cause of these murders.
- Direct involvement of Indigenous leaders in decision-making, not just as ceremonial signatories, but as equal partners in governance.
A People Under Siege
The Teduray and Lambangian peoples are not mere footnotes in the Bangsamoro story—they are nations within a nation, stewards of the land long before the BARMM was imagined. Their voices, cultures, and rights are not negotiable, and their survival is not optional.
Every time a Teduray elder is beheaded, the blade does not only sever a life—it cuts at the fabric of justice, autonomy, and peace in Mindanao.
If BARMM is to stand as a true model of self-determination, it cannot be built on the silence of Indigenous graves. Justice for Nel Lupos is not just about one man—it is about ending a cycle of violence that has claimed far too many lives.
The question now is simple: will the government act, or will it allow the soil of Maguindanao to drink deeper still from the blood of the Teduray?