Ibon Responds to AFP’s Tirade: Unicef Report on Children and Women in Armed Conflict Based on Solid Data

This is in response to the statement made by AFP spokesperson Lt. Col. Ernesto Torres that the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)-supported study Uncounted Lives: Children, Women and Conflict in the Philippines was “very partial” in favor of the communist rebels and that “other sources of information were not given due consideration.”

The findings of the study are based on extensive research by IBON Foundation, the Children’s Rehabilitation Center (CRC) and the Center for Women’s Resources (CWR). There was direct field work in armed conflict-affected communities and desk research using government and non-government sources.

It is precisely the attention to detail that gives the research team the confidence to bring even uncomfortable truths to light. We are thus concerned with the AFP’s knee-jerk reactions dismissing the study for its candor without benefit of a sincere reading of it.

The study used data provided by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) on displacements and by the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) on human rights violations allegedly by state forces and the country’s other armed groups. The non-government CRC in turn is a leading source of monitoring and documentation of human rights violations of children that has long worked with UNICEF.

There are moreover extensive direct quotes from official Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) documents and publications particularly on its counter-insurgency strategies and tactics. A request for basic information on the conflicts was actually submitted and pursued at the Defense Intelligence Office of the Department of National Defense (DND) in Camp Aguinaldo in June 2006, clearly identifying its use for the UNICEF research, but this was turned down.

The study also used multiple research methods to investigate the impact of armed conflict on children and women in eight communities in the provinces of Abra, Mindoro Oriental, Capiz, Leyte, Surigao del Sur, Compostela Valley, North Cotabato and Maguindanao. These included focused group discussions, life stories and key informant interviews with over 430 respondents of mainly children and women but also local government officials, religious leaders, church workers, NGO workers, teachers and school officials. There were also two surveys: one with 800 respondents to compare armed conflict with non-armed conflict areas; another with 1,180 respondents on basic health and education indicators.

Among the well-documented findings is that children and women face hazards from outbreaks of fighting in their communities and from physical displacement due to military operations. They have also suffered not just as inadvertent “collateral damage” but as apparently conscious targets in the course of systematic military campaigns to undermine the community support base of the insurgent groups.

IBON hopes that the study contributes to making the plight of children and women amidst war more visible so that they become more urgent matters of attention. UNICEF’s support for this kind of rigorous grassroots-based research is bold and very welcome. But the AFP’s arrogant dismissal of the study, and the malicious attempt to link IBON with the Communist Party of the Philippines, only reflects the state of denial among the state armed forces that the findings are legitimate. This only works against the well-being of the children, women and communities adversely affected by armed conflict. #

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