Christians, Muslims Assert Peace Amid War Mongering

By Nora O. Gamolo

MANILA — The prospect of serious renewed fighting breaking out in Mindanao after the end of Ramadan has got Christian and Muslim organizations trying to work out how best to help keep the peace and kick-start renewed talks while helping out in the huge relief effort needed.

According to Bernie Aquino, secretariat member of the Peace for Life, a global solidarity interfaith network of peace advocates and the National Council of Churches of the Philippines (NCCP), the biggest federation of Protestant churches in the Philippines, her group will visit the conflict affected areas in the coming days.

Members of the Bantay Ceasefire (Ceasefire Watch) worry what the coming weeks may bring. The group was formed in 2003 after the last crisis in Mindanao to help monitor and facilitate relations between the government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

They consider their work up until now to have been a great success. “We have created a space for peace,” insists Omar Unggui, barangay (village) captain of Dalingaoen in Pikit, North Cotabato. The five-year-old initiative started in the adjacent barangay of Nalapaan, eventually attracting six other neighboring villages in Mindanao.

Through the group, the communities maintained a continual dialogue throughout the past five years with both the military and the MILF leaders to avoid renewed clashes.

An uneasy truce held until the recent clashes in August. Now Unggui’s message to government and all concerned parties: “Don’t give us food, give us peace.”

But it will be a tough call. Pikit is hemmed in by many MILF camps, foremost among them Camp Buliok and Camp Raja Muda, both of which are now army targets.

Renewed hostilities after the government’s botched signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) has already killed 83 people and injured 101 people, according to the government’s National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC). The real figure though could be higher.

Dialogue with the President

Representatives of the more than half a million evacuees in Mindanao have traveled to Manila in mid-September to meet and petition President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in Manila to order a halt to the military operations pursue new round of peace talks.

They included representatives of the Mindanao Peoples Caucus (MPC), a tri-people alliance of Christians, Muslims and Lumads (indigenous peoples).

“We fully supported the process that was designed to bring peace to Mindanao. However, some were not ready and some were not consulted,” said lawyer Mary Ann Arnado, MPC coordinator. “The situation calls for a deeper reflection on our peace advocacy,”

Ironically, many evacuees in the 17-man delegation who met with the President had visited her earlier after the last crisis in Mindanao in 2003. Many maintain it was this meeting that helped Arroyo decide to call a ceasefire that led to peace talks and ultimately the failed MOA-AD.

Their positive experience in 2003 explains the evacuees’ high spirits, even while noting that President Arroyo claimed the number of evacuees from this fighting to be a tenth of the number the NDCC is reporting.

The group also expressed concern and apprehension over the military’s denial late last week that the president directed a halt to the air raids amid Ramadan.

Father Edward Vazquez, one of the delegation members from Pikit raised the issue of the evacuees’ mental and physical well-being.

His own congregation had already donated more than PhP 100,000 (USD 2,174) worth of relief goods and is now mobilizing other parishes to support the displaced.

“We are still preparing for what might happen after the end of Ramadan,” he told the Philippine Human Rights Reporting Project.

NDCC data indicates that the fighting between government soldiers and the MILF that started in some 15 villages in four towns in North Cotabato has spread to over 68 municipalities and five cities in 11 provinces across Central Mindanao.

In an update, NDCC administrator Glenn J. Rabonza, reported that internally displaced persons (IDPs) in 123 official evacuation centers had already reached 528,053 during the peak of evacuations. But by September 21, the number of IDPs here had reportedly decreased to 14,048 families or 69,450 IDPs.

“Many of the displaced took the risk of either returning to their communities or moving into the interior areas to stay with relatives. With homes, schools, mosques and chapels burned, those who cannot be accommodated in the formal evacuation centers set up informal, makeshift or house-based evacuation sites outside the formal evacuation centers,” said Dakila Aquino, a staff of the Citizen’s Disaster Response Center, a non-government organization that joined a government-NGO relief mission in August and September.

Some 51,258 families or 253,255 persons were staying outside evacuation centers as of September 21, according to NDCC. This was an increase from the 48,601 IDP families, or 239,979 persons, registered on September 17.

The increase in the number is parallel to increase in the number of evacuation centers from 107 to 123 due to newly opened evacuation centers in the towns of Datu Anggal Midtimbang, Datu Piang, Datu Saudi Ampatuan, Shariff Aguak and Talayan in Maguindanao.

The IDPs now face problems of high morbidity and mortality brought by inaccessibility of areas due to safety and security reasons, congested evacuation centers and lack of medical services.

NDCC figures showed the total cost of damage to now stand at PhP 121.5 (USD 2.6 million). Of this figure, PhP 38.5 (USD 836,956) are in infrastructure and PhP 83 million (USD 1.8 million) in agriculture. Some 275 houses are listed as totally or partially destroyed.

The combined financial assistance provided by government agencies, local and international NGOs, and United Nations agencies now stands at PhP 89.3 million (USD 1.9 million). More than PhP 50 million (USD 1 million) of this has been provided by government agencies, local government units and the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.

Relief missions

The Council for the Welfare of Children Sub-Committee on Children Affected by Armed Conflict and Displacement (CWC-SC CAACD) called on local NGOs to help out in North Cotabato after fighting broke out there last month.

In their report, the entire team expressed fears that if conflict and displacement continue, the distress and anxiety experienced by children may worsen. The team fears the impact of suspended schooling will force students to drop out of the system for good, affecting their future chances to find jobs and livelihoods.

The group also reported on the voluntary separation of Muslim and Christian evacuees in some centers in Pikit and Aleosan, apparently caused by mutual distrust attributed to the conflict. They noted that some evacuees stayed in their villages during the day but went to the evacuation centers at night for safety reasons.

In Pikit, about 30 percent of IDPs have reportedly now returned home mostly to the villages around Aleosan and Midsayap. Those staying behind are mostly those who have lost their homes to the fighting and those staying with relatives or simply camping rough. Philippine Human Rights Reporting Project

(The author is a columnist and former senior desk editor of The Manila Times and was a finalist of the 2007 Jaime V. Ongpin Award for Excellence in Journalism.)