Managing a Community-Based Disaster Response in Complex emergencies: The Pikit Experience
(A sharing presented to the National Conference on Community-Based Disaster Management organized by the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) and the Philippine Disaster Management Forum (PDMF) held at the National Defense College in the Philippines, Camp General Emilio Aguinaldo, QC on January 28-30, 2003)
The Philippines is one of the world's most disaster prone countries. The United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has recorded that from September 1998 to April 2000, more than 2.9 million people have been affected by typhoons, floods and volcanic eruption in the Philippines Aside from calamities brought about by natural disasters, the US Committee for Refugees has placed the Philippines among the top 50 countries in the world with the most number of people affected by complex disasters brought about by armed conflict. While disaster management in the country has drawn lessons mostly from responses to natural calamities, scant materials are available on experiences on community-mobilization during emergency situation in the context of armed conflict. The following is a recollection of Fr. Bert Layson of the community's response to the massive evecuation in 2000. It is a contribution to the enrichment of learning on community-based disaster management.
I have been in Pikit, Cotabato for almost 5 years now and in this short span of time, I have experience 3 major armed conflicts. The first one was in 1997, which displaced 30,000 civilians; the second was in 2000, which displaced 41,000 civilians; and the third in 2001, which displaced 24,000. In between major armed conflicts, we also experienced natural disasters such as drought, floods and tornadoes.
The all-out-war in 2000 was the most difficult man-made calamity the people of Pikit experienced; this remote town in Cotabato, which has 60,000 populations. But as the war has shown its ugly face, it also demonstrated the goodness of people. As soon as the war started in Buldon onApril 28, 2000, he Parish Pastoral Council met in the convento in the evening to organize the Disaster Response Team or DRT. It was a group composed mainly of young people. Different committees were formed and people were assigned to perform the specific job. Later, this group was joined by Muslim volunteers. An initial amount of P20,000 was immediately approved by the Council.
Information are very important in managing a disaster. I went alone during those initial days visiting flashpoint areas. I knew more or less the position of the military and also of the MILF. In some of those areas, they were just 500 meters away from each other separated by tall cogon grass. They could actually see each other from the distance.
Even before the shooting war started in Pikit on May 2, thousands of civilians began to abandon their villages. They trooped to the town center. School buildings were immediately filled up. Some stayed in the madrazas, gymnasium, and warehouses. Others put up makeshift tents under the trees. The rest stayed in the homes of their relatives.
Actually, the day before the MILF took over the Davao-Cotabato National Highway in Pikit and Aleosan towns on May 2, I already received information about the offensive from a reliable source but my source did not tell me where and when exactly the MILF would strike. That information was valuable and crucial. More or less it give me an idea how large the scale of evacuation that would have take place in the succeeding days. Also I had my gas tank filled up immediately. The following day, gasoline stations in town quickly ran out of supply.
This time, together with some Moro friends, we went around visiting various evacuation centers to get first hand assessment of the situation. Evacuees kept coming everyday. One barangay served as a host to evacuees of an adjacent barangay. But as violence escalated, we evacuated the entire population of that barangay including the evacuees to the town center. For those evacuees, it was their second evacuation in the span of one week. I remember destroying the padlocks of some classrooms just to accommodate the continuous arrival of evacuees from the remote barangays.
For almost 5 days, Pikit was virtually isolated. Communication lines were cut off. Relief assistance could not reach Pikit as the highway was closed to civilian vehicles. Supply of gas and kerosene ran out in the stations. Prices of commodities soared high. People began to panic as supply of rice ran out of the market. I said to myself we could not go on with this situation. People will starve. People will die. And people start barging into some others' stores.
One morning, the president of the Market Vendors Association came to me at the convento. She complained of rice shortage. With representatives from concerned citizens, we went to see the mayor and told him of the problem. With the mayor, we decided to to see Colonel Esperon, the 603rd brigade commander of the Philippine Army. They have established a Command Post just at the back of the municipal building. We told the Colonel about the shortage of rice and the willingness of the rice traders to go to Kidapawan City to get supply of rice for the people of Pikit. The colonel agreed to our proposal on the condition that there would be military escort. We agreed with hesitation. With hesitation because we actually did not want to be escorted by soldiers knowing that they were the target of their enemies. Their presence would jeopardize the safety of the civilians, or so we thought. When I went back to the convent, I immediately called up the office of the NFA in Kidapawan City and arranged the transaction. The manager promised to give Pikit town a priority.
The following day, about twenty-five vehicles escorted by military personnel left for Kidapawan City. They returned in the afternoon of the same day. But the supply did not last long. At this time, the number of evacuees had swelled to 41,000. It was at this time that we decided to reach to our friends in the media, to make media sensitive to the plight of the civilian victims. We were lucky to have an old generator in the parish that kept alive the battery of our Globe telephone and fax machine.
We called up radio stations to give them the real situation in Pikit especially the sad plight of the evacuees. It was through our radio advocacy that we were able to get the attention of government authorities and other humanitarian agencies. One morning, I had an emotional exchange of words with Governor Piñol over the radio. I complained that they were not doing their best to help the people of Pikit. I told him that we don't have the resources and that they have the resources and that they must do something to bring the resources to Pikit. I thought as a governor of the Province, it was only him who could convince the military to allow the civilians have access to supply of food
The following day, truckloads of assorted goods arrived. The provincial government set up a Disaster Coordinating Station at the ABC Hall near the municipal building.
One day, some barangay officials arrived in the convento. They were leaders coming from the remote district of Silik. They complained that many of them who went to town to buy food were prevented by the military to go back to their barangays. Thousands of civilians in the district of Silik were isolated and had no access to food in the poblacion. Again with concerned citizens, we went to see Colonel Esperon. We told him that the evacuation centers in the poblacion were already congested and that there was no more place for new evacuees. We suggested that he allows the supply to reach the district of Silik. He readily agreed. The following day with MSWD personnel and supply from the provincial government, we distributed packs of assorted foodstuff to about 1,500 families of the 6 baranagys of the interior district of Silik.
By this time, the poblacion was a total mess. All personnel of the municipal government and its line agencies were on duty twenty-four hours. But their efforts seemed not enough against the magnitude of the tragedy that had befallen the town Pikit. It was then we realized that we have to play a more active and wider role. Sure it was the primary responsibility of the government to take care of the evacuees but we realized too that the government needed help. And so we decided to expand our intervention. I personally went to the barangay captain of the poblacion and asked him if they could take care of the house-based evacuees. He agreed and immediately mobilized his barangay officials. We provided the supply. That has spared the parish and MSWD of about 600 families coming every three days to seek assistance.
We then established close coordination with MSWD and RHU personnel. We wanted to put order so that there would be no duplication of services. Our resources combined were getting scarcer as days went by and we needed to maximize them. We did not want to creat another war among the evacuees. The parish has one volunteer that was in-charge of documentation. It was a very important job. Her job was to find out which evacuation centers have received assistance and when. We would exchange data and strategies with MSWD and RHU personnel. It was clear to me though that the parish was not the lead agency, that we are just supporting and complementing the government efforts, that if we were to help the people of Pikit, we must work together as a team.
On a few occasions, the government would run out of supply of rice and they would run to us and we would readily share what we have. On other occasions, we would have the supply but we would not have enough vehicles to transport and the government would provide the vehicles and fuel in return. On some occasions, our volunteers and their volunteers would join hands together to distribute food to the starving evacuees. On a few occasions, they would run out of medicines and we would provide them. We also supplied medicines to their barangay health volunteers just to keep them on their post to prevent sickness, disease and deaths in the evacuation centers. There was no quarreling. There was no accomplishment-grabbing. Thare was no "we-they" mentality. We found ourselves in the same tragedy with our people and goodness sprung from the hearts of many government, NGO's and church volunteers of Pikit, Muslims and Christian alike. This was the way too we projected ourselves in the media, one reason I believe, why assistance keep coming during those difficult days.
On some occasions, the civilians complained of military excesses. We brought the complaints to the ranking officer. If the situation does not change we go on air. We did not confront people to make enemies for ourselves. The war was enough. We did similar intervention for the excesses of the MILF. One day the MILF started retaliating by firing mortars at the army artillery stationed in Fort Pikit situated at the heart of the poblacion. One house was directly hit and four civilians were wounded. We went on air appealing to the MILF to spare the poblacion. The incident was never repeated again.
As soon as the highway was opened to civilian vehicles, humanitarian agencies started to arrive. We sighed with relief. We felt we were not alone anymore. Many of these international humanitarian agencies dropped by at the parish to coordinate their efforts. We made sure that we entertain them by making our comfort room in the convent available for them. Also we would offer them a cup of coffee or a glass of water. It was part of Filipino hospitality but also we realized that we needed their skills and additional manpower. We would readily provide available information that they needed. We would remind them to coordinate their efforts with MSWD and RHU. Soon, they were all over the place training evacuation camp managers, installing latrines and water facilities and distributing plastic laminated sacks for the "tent cities". They were very professional and dedicated. The goal was to compliment and not to duplicate or discredit the other. This was the kind of relationship that was developed between the church, NGOs and the government of Pikit, a relationship that we nurtured up to this day. Of course, there were one or two humanitarian agencies that would simply disregard the value of cooperation and coordination and in effect would destabilize what was already an established practice by people on the ground.
We also strengthened our media advocacy focused on the plight of the evacuees. We wrote updates of the war and sent them outside Pikit to our friends in media. One day, Carol Arguillas, the former Bureau Chief of the Philippine Daily Inquirer wrote something like: Evacuation Centers, the New Killing Fields. It caught the ire of then Sec. Romualdez of the Department of Health. He complained of the media making a big fuss of the deaths in the evacuation centers. At that time 34 civilians have already died because of various illnesses. He said that there were more deaths in the evacuation center during the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. "Everybody dies" he said. The secretary seemed not to know that those who died in the evacuation centers in Central Luzon were victims of a natural calamity while those who died in the evacuation centers in Pikit were victims of a man-made calamity that was not inevitable. Many of the total of 120 or so evacuees who died in Pikit died of preventable diseases. They would have been alive today if the good Secretary did not leave alone the only government doctor in town to take care of 41,000 evacuees.
After that article came out in the media, a week later, Tabang Mindanaw organized a team of doctors from Manila and sent them down to Mindanao. For a week, they conducted medical and dental operation in different evacuation centers. In one barangay, the water overflowed from Paidu Pulangi river. The whole barangay was submerged into water. The doctors have to wade through the water with their boots on. Consultations were done in the middle of the road that was flooded up to half-knee deep. Some doctors have to conduct their consultations on board small bancas.
The war was really oppressive, physically, psychologically and emotionally. Our volunteers were getting sick. But they never ceased. Once they got well, they returned to the parish again. Every night we would meet together, assess the situation, and plan for the next day. And every Saturday night, we would prepare some foods and drinks, share jokes and stories amidst the roaring of mortar fires and sporadic gun burst. We prayed together and sometimes we would cry together at the news of another death.
But even caregivers needed to be cared. And so, our volunteers were brought to Samal Island in Davao City by IID or Initiatives for International Dialogue, a regional NGO based in Davao City. For five days, they were debriefed by professional people. They returned revitalized and invigorated. They lasted for nine months until the time we terminated our operation in January of 2001. I have never seen people so young going out of themselves, exposing themselves to dangers, enduring the rain and scorching heat of the sun in order to bring food to the hungry evacuees whom they have not even met in their lives. Nor was an 18-year old typical Muslim lass who wears headdress and a long-sleeved blouse. She stayed with us in the convent for 6 months. She only returned home during the beginning of Ramadhan in November. Once, during our Christmas gathering, I asked them where they got their strength and they said that they do not know where it came from. Certainly not from them they said. It seemed like for all of them they recognized that it was Allah or God who gave them strength during those difficult times.
As a gratitude for their dedication and service to the evacuees, Mayor Malingco treated the government and church volunteers later to an outing in Davao city, much to their delight.
When the war simmered down in July after Camp Rajamuda was overran by government troops, we accompanied thousands of willing evacuees to return home to their villages after the mayor held a series of negotiation with the military and the MILF. This time, we distributed supply in the villages using government vehicles with combined volunteers from the government and the church.
Around October, when most of the evacuees have decided to return, Canada Fund offered us a big amount for supplemental feeding. The amount was so big that we realized we could not implement the project without the help from the government. We did not have enough personnel. And so we talked to the DA for the possible involvement of their agency and BNS or barangay nutrition scholars. They agreed to manage and to mobilized their BNS. And so for two months and a half, five times a week, we were able to feed 10,000 aged 0-6 year old children, covering 42 barangay of Pikit. At least 800 Muslim and Christian mothers and leaders were involved in the project.
The following year, we continued minimal operation on relief and slowly moved on two rehabilitation work. In partnership with Tabang Mindanaw and BALAY Rehabilitation Center, we trained 35 local Muslim and Christian volunteer on trauma healing. They were mostly volunteers of MSWD, RHU, DA and the parish. The idea was to assist the traumatized children. And so, for two months, our volunteers conducted psychosocial activities to traumatized children in three most affected baranagays. We had just barely left by one hour during the culmination day in November in barangay Bulol when the military conducted hot pursuit operation against suspected kidnappers hiding in the same barangay. The children were back in the evacuation centers again where they spent their Ramadhan and Christmas holidays.
Now the parish is engaged in establishing "Space for Peace" communities in Pikit. It's a rehabilitation project where church, NGOs and government converge to help the people displaced by war rebuilt their community and their relationship. We successfully negotiated with the MILF and the military not to make these barangays as a battleground of their forces. Then, we implement various socio-economic projects with the help of NGOs with the complementation of government line agencies. Two very important aspects of this project are psychosocial intervention and peace education. Instead of creating new structures in the community, we just maximized and activated the existing structure, which is the Barangay Development Council. The idea was to support and strengthen the local governance and empowering the local community through capability training and seminars. Tabang Mindanaw, CRS, OXFAM, CIDA, UNDP, PBSP, PDAP, ECDFC, BALAY Rehabilitation Center, Balik Kalipay are so far some of those funding partners and NGOs who journeyed with us in helping the Internally Displaced Persons rebuild their communities.
This is the story of Pikit, the story of our people. The war was certainly the work of humans, but how we survived the war was certainly the work of another. Somebody out there must have intervened. And our volunteers seemed to know who.