A Philippine Human Rights NGO providing Psychosocial Services and Rehabilitation to Internally Displaced Persons and Survivors of Torture and Organized Violence.

Poverty And The Absence Of Peace: Two Faces Of Human Rights Violations In The Era Of Globalization (The Mindanao Experience)

In the following article, the writer recounts the real-life ordeal of the victims of war in Mindanao, some of whom are presently receiving psychosocial care and rehabilitation from Balay. As head of the Disaster Response Team in Pikit, North Cotabato, Fr. Bert is a charismatic advocate of "Space for Peace" and inter-religious dialogue. He presented this "personal sharing" during the Panday Kalinaw (Peace Conference) held during the Human Rights Day Celebration in Miriam College on December 10, 2001.

Mindanao to many is the land of the wild. To me, it is my home. Mindanao is dear to me. It is my homeland. With the land area of approximately 10.2 million hectares, it is three times larger than Belgium, twice larger than Switzerland, and Fifteen times bigger than Singapore. It is the home of three diverse people-the Lumads, the Moro, and the Christian settlers.

Oftentimes called the Land of Promise, it is blessed with natural resources. The Philippine economy depends on Mindanao for 25% for rice; 67% for cattle and tuna; more than 50% of corn, fish, and chicken; 100% of pineapple, rubber, and banana exports; 90% of plywood and lumber; 63% of the country's nickel reserves; 48'% of gold reserves; 38.5% of forest; and 38% of farmlands.

So rich, yet, so poor. So blessed, yet, so miserable. Of the country's 24 poorest provinces, 16 are from Mindanao including the 5 provinces in the ARMM (Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao).

Mindanao contributes 40% of the national income; yet, it gets back only 20% from the national budget. The other 20% that Mindanao contributes to the national coffer is probably spent by the government by acquiring more bullets and bombs to kill our people especially our Moro sisters and brothers.

Mindanao is the country's milking cow. Sadly, however, the cow is not fed. It is bannered as the "food basket", yet it is treated as a "waste basket".

An old Muslim woman commented that when she saw Manila's light railways and flyovers on TV, "Ay ang kanilang kalsada dalawang storey. Mabuti pa sa kanila. Dito sa amin, lubak-lubak pa rin ang mga kalsada" ("Look at their two-storey streets. In our place, the roads are rough and unpaved").

This is the basis of a lot of resentments of the Mindanawons against the government. Now the government is puzzled why there are MILF, MNLF, /Abu Sayaff, kidnappers, and other armed groups in Mindanao. The saddest thing is every time we make mistakes; the government is quick to unleash its forces of destruction against its own people using its superior military might.

I have been working in a small town of Pikit in North Cotabato for four years now. During this short period, I have already experienced three major armed conflicts between government troops and MILF forces. The first one was in 1997 when the military assaulted Camp Rajahmuda which displaced 30,000 civilians. School buildings where destroyed. About 800 houses were either totally or partially damaged. The Ramos administration poured in 97 million pesos in rehabilitation.

I was in-charge of monitoring the government projects in Rajahmuda. The high school was about to be completed. Then, last year's all-out-war campaign by the Estrada government brought havoc in Central Mindanao. Eight hundred thousand civilians were forced to leave their homes. Forty-one thousand were in Pikit alone.

Terrified children, young boys carrying small children on their backs, women clutching their babies, teenage boys on top of carabaos that pulled sledges which carried elderly humans, chickens, and belongings in plastic sacks all together. It was like in the movie Ten Commandments except that they were not going to the Promised Land to live in abundance "with milk and honey," but to evacuation centers where they suffered in deprivation and misery.

At the height of the war, a young Moro couple left their two children to the care of their relatives in the evacuation center. They managed to return home to their village to harvest some farm crops to augment their meager ration. They never returned to see their two children again. Three days later, their bloated bodies where found floating in their farm lot. The father bore a gunshot wound in the head and the mother in the belly. The mother was seven months pregnant.

I brought (internationally-acclaimed movie director) Marilou-Diaz Abaya to one of those "tent cities" in the remote barangay. The evacuees were celebrating a "kanduli" for the seventh day prayer. A week ago, a little child had died. On the narrow bamboo floor, spread with banana leaves, a small mound of cooked rice. Beside it was a pile of brownish salt. Not far away, we noticed several people gathered around a small makeshift structure. When we entered, we found a body of an old man lying on the floor covered by a piece of white linen. He just died we were told. I saw Marilou shaking her head.

At least a thousand people died in the war last year. About 500 barangays were affected and about 6,000 homes were destroyed. Thousands of hectares of farmlands were abandoned.

"Since I was young, Father," recalled Nor, our 18-year old Muslim volunteer, "all, that I remember was evacuation. I remember that we have to flee one night under the over of darkness. I did not know where we were going. It was so dark. I just followed my parents from behind. We walked for hours like there was no end until we reached our destination. We never retrieved what we left that night-our thresher, carabaos, goats, chickens, ducks, and other belongings. Until now, we have not recovered. I don't think we can still recover. My father is old and sickly now".

Oftentimes, poverty is one of the causes of rebellion. But in the case of Mindanao, it is war which is the cause of our poverty. We are told that the war is the solution. But to us, it is the problem. Every time the bullets rain in our beautiful sky, we know we are going 20 years backwards.

"That two-storey house, Father, was made possible through the collective effort of my children who are working in Saudi", said Babu Kalima, a 64-year old Muslim woman. As she narrated, she was pointing to a ruin that was left of her house.

We hardly had recovered from last year's tragedy when another military operation took place in Pikit last month during the beginning of the Holy month of Ramadhan in pursuit of a handful of kidnappers believed to be hiding in camp Rajahmuda. This time 24,000 civilians fled and sought refuge at the poblacion.

The faces of many of them have now become familiar to me. I have met them only a year ago under those makeshift tents in their deplorable condition. One late afternoon, I joined a family evacuee in the breaking of the fast. Their meal consisted of rice, sardines, and kangkong. Seven people have already died in one evacuation center. They were mostly children.

There were many images of death that have permanently settled in my memory. They have even invaded my dreams. I wonder how many times I have locked myself inside my room and buried my face deep on the pillow. On a few occasions, I have voluntarily submitted to kill my heart in order to be free.

Our children have been robbed of their innocence, their freedom to play, to learn, to smile. Many of them have been traumatized without even they knowing it. They scamper for cover looking for their mothers at the sounds of helicopters passing by. When you ask a Moro boy what he wants when he grows old, he tells you that he wants to be an MILF rebel to fight the military. When you ask a Christian boy what he wants, he tells you that he wants to become a soldier to fight the rebels.

A seven-year old boy saw the execution of his father by an MILF rebel in one of those rare incidents when the civilians resisted the occupation and killed an MILF fighter. He gathered the empty shells. "Throw those shells away", the mother told the boy as she narrated the story to me. The boy simply ignored her. When asked by her mother what he wanted to do with the empty shells, the boy without hesitation replied, "Gawin ko itong anting-anting kay paglaki ko magsundalo ako para patayin yong nagpatay kay Papang" ("I will turn this bullet shells into amulets. I want to be a soldier when I grow up so that I can kill the killers of my father").

The war has succeeded in producing new generation of children who have seen all the ugly images of it and were exposed to violence of great magnitude and who now believe that violence is the best way and only way in resolving conflicts.

I have seen young Moro boys stomped the ground and heard them threw vindictives every time they heard 105 mortars fired toward MILF positions. I wonder if the government has realized that as early as now it must prepare itself for yet another war against those young boys whose father or elder brother may have lost in the war.

The battle has ended but not the war. If the government wants peace in Mindanao, it must pursue with sincerity the only path to peace. And the only way to peace is the Peace Process itself. There must be no detour.

Indeed, it is difficult for us in Pikit to engage in peace-building when every four years you have an average of three major armed conflicts. For every armed conflict usually creates fresh conflicts and division among our people. It resurrects old wounds that have been otherwise healed and forgotten.

The government is living with a lie that there will be peace in Mindanao after it has captured the 46 MILF camps last year and would have rehabilitated Mindanao using billions of pesos. Manila can transport shiploads of food and medicines and planeloads of soldiers and military hardware in Mindanao. It can even bank-transfer billions of pesos in Mindanao to bring peace to our troubled land. But it will not succeed because there are things in this world that are not for sale. And peace is one of them.

The pain and suffering continue to exist out there among thousands of displaced civilians in central Mindanao. And the assumption that everything is all right grows with the lie that this will pass away, that we are all brother and sister Filipinos anyway and that we must start to bring to fulfillment the peace that we have been searching for.

Manila government must understand that peace cannot be simply transported nor transferred to Mindanao because, first and foremost, peace for the Mindanawons is like a tree that must be planted in our ground and must be rooted in our soil.

Last week, we celebrated the Mindanao week of peace sponsored by the Bishops-Ulama forum. Many were asking me why do we have to celebrate the Mindanao week of peace when there is no peace to celebrate. I told them that we needed to. And so, we put up peace slogans along the highway. Children lighted candles and mothers displayed flowers. Then, we had the peace motorcade participated by different sectors, Muslims and Christians alike.

We needed to break the apathy of people and provide hope in order to sustain our peace building efforts in Mindanao even as we ourselves are groping in the dark.

The war in Mindanao last year had brought the beast and the worst in people because that is the nature of war. It diminishes certain aspects of humanity. In war, human beings become less human because they tend to be cruel against each other. Ironically, though, the war last year had also brought out the good and the best in the people of Pikit.

The parish, for example had created a disaster response team composed of young Muslim and Christian volunteers. Under the scorching heat of the sun, the pouring rain, and amidst bullet fire, this group of dedicated volunteers crossed their religious and cultural boundaries and brought food to thousands of starving evacuees in various evacuation centers, demolishing the myth that then war in Mindanao is religious in nature.

Nor, even stayed with us in the convento for 7 months. She only returned home to her family when Ramadhan began in December. Now she is back to school after two years in hibernation. She is taking up Islamic studies at the University of Southern Mindanao. Her college education is being sponsored by Marilou Diaz Abaya and Prof. Randy David.

Nor and the rest of the DRT volunteers have discovered their interconnectedness and interdependence, strangely in times of war, and who have learned the real essence of human community. For many of them, they have not even heard the word inter-religious dialogue. But this small group of people has shown to the people of Pikit that, indeed, dialogue between Muslims and Christians is possible even in times of war.

How much more in times of peace?

From November to December last year, the focus of our intervention was to the most vulnerable sector affected by war-the children. Tapping the human resources of the local government especially the village nutrition volunteers of the Department of Agriculture and with the assistance from Canada Fund, for 2 months, 5 times a week, in simultaneous supplemental feeding was conducted in all the 42 barangays in Pikit, providing nutritional food to 10,000 Muslim and Christian children aged 0-6 years old. At least, 800 Muslim and Christian village women were involved in the project.

We trained 35 Muslim and Christian volunteers on stress debriefing, trauma healing and para-counselling in July this year. This group of volunteers, in three teams, conducted psychosocial activities to traumatized Christian and Muslim children in barangays Rajahmuda, Bulol, and Nalapaan for 7 successive weeks. In fact we were having culmination activity in barangay Bulol that day last November 16, when the military ordered the pursuit operation against the kidnappers. The children are back in the evacuation centers again.

In August last year, while the war still going on, the parish accepted partnership with Tabang Mindanao in the rehabilitation of barangay Nalapaan, a village severely hit by the armed conflict. It is a barangay along the Cotabato-Davao national highway and inhabited by Muslims, Christians, and Lumads. We negotiated with the MILF and the military to give the people of Nalapaan a small space-geographically, emotionally, and psychologically, whereby they would have the chance to rebuild their lives and regain their human dignity. We appealed to both warring parties not to make Nalapaan as a battleground for their forces.

The parish then made the representations with other local and international NGOs for assistance such as CRS, OXFAM, PBSP, and PDAP. Socio-economic projects such as housing, psychosocial intervention and infrastructures were implemented in the area. Intensive education on the tri-people history of Mindanao, culture of peace, value formation, as well as capability building of leaders also become major components of the program.

The people declared their barangay as a 'Space for Peace' on Febuary 2, 2001. In the span of one year, barangay Nalapaan slowly transformed itself into a 'Peace Community' where people of different faiths have learned to live each other harmoniously in a genuine spirit of dialogue. Now it is being replicated in another barangay in Pikit.

During the last electoral exercise in May, the parish once again was involved in the NAMFREL under the leadership of Fr. Jonathan. About 200 Muslim and Christian volunteers came to enlist themselves. They risked their lives to protect the sanctity of the ballots. Many of them got sick after the elections were over. But they have proven that, in fact, they could work together towards a collective goal even in the midst of danger and intimidation.

Perhaps, what is most important in our peace-building effort in Pikit was the Culture of Peace Seminars that the parish had launched in June in Partnership with CRS. One of the highlights of the seminar was the healing session at the end of the third day. The Participants are made to sit in a circle in a victim-offender confrontation setting. Then, each one narrates his or her own painful story while everybody listens attentively. In the course of the session, everybody comes to a realization that his of her tribe has actually hurt the other somehow. Finally, the session culminates with everybody shaking hands or embracing each other and asking forgiveness from one another.

It is a very emotional encounter. For many of them, it is their first time to come face to face with a Muslim or with a Christian or with a Lumad in such a dialogical setting.

I believe that if we can train people for war, we can also train people for peace. This is the basic philosophy of the Culture of Peace Seminars. Some of my critics in the parish before are now avid peace advocates.

Today is the holy season of Ramadhan for our Muslim sisters and brothers. I went around visiting my Muslim friends and ate with them during their 'buka' or breaking of the fast. Two days ago, the Parish celebrated the Patronal Fiesta. Our Muslim friends came in to join us in our celebration. They had their 'buka' or breaking of the fast with us in the convento. We prepared 'halal' food for them. "Father, I think what we are doing is something new," said one of my friends. 'Yes I use to visit my Christian friends during Christmas, but, that was twenty years ago," he said.

Dialogue begins by looking at the other person not only as a neighbor but as a real sister or brother. And the Parish convent is a silent witness of our painstaking attempt to restore our common humanity that is anchored in mutual respect for each other.

My Muslim friends, when they are in the convento, normally use my room to pray regardless of the cross and other religious symbols hanging on the walls. I asked one of them one day, "are you not distracted with all the religious symbols in my room?" And he said, "no, father. We know that you are a priest and we all pray to the same God anyway."

"We have too much of religion," I have heard some people say. "It has failed. Let's better abolish it." But religion has not failed. Its just that it has never been tried.

I believe that we are slowly breaking the walls that have held us captives for centuries in Mindanao. Someone has told me that I might get discouraged for being too passionate about my work in dialogue and peace-building. Yes, I realize that failure is sad. But there is greater sadness when one fails because he has not tried at all.

Real peace-building is a very slow and tedious process. It is like building blocks. No one builds by placing the blocks at the top. It has to start from the bottom.

I believe that something beautiful is evolving in Pikit and it is just waiting to be born. Yes, one plants the see of goodness not even knowing if and when it is going to grow. But I have faith that whatever goodness one has planted will blossom only in goodness and that is goodness alone will remain in the end.