After our presentation last week, I’ve been thinking a lot about my specific topic of interest for the trip, which was zones (or sometimes spaces) of peace, or more specifically the relationship between zones of peace and development. Although I had done a fair amount of research before going on the trip about the different ways that zones and spaces of peace were formed, and how much they depend on development projects and funding to survive, there’s nothing like seeing something firsthand to really understand how it works for the people who live there. And of course, what we saw was that each zone or space of peace had its own way of navigating that dynamic through the three that we visited on the trip.
First we visited a zone of peace in Tulunan, called Nabandasan. This zone of peace populated mostly by Christians was unilaterally declared by the local government, it has established restrictions on military presence in the area, and had experienced some improvements since the declaration, but still desired more development. The town had implemented the Department of Education’s peace education directive, and women expressed that they had more freedom to work and gain their own income, but the distance to schools and clinics were still far enough due to the village’s isolated location that development challenges were still present.
Then, we were taken to a sitio that had established itself as a space of peace in Pikit called Baruyan. Here, as opposed to Nabandasan, the population was tri-people (a more equal mix of Christians, Moros, and Lumads), and the space was created through negotiations between the local government and the MILF, which still allowed military detachments within the region and created a local policing force, but civilians were not to have guns. Baruyan, though, had pretty extensive development projects established, including socio-economic projects, scholarship programs, and had networked not only with other local spaces of peace, but had national and international support.
Getting a tour through Baruyan in Pikit.
Last, we visited the zone of peace of Bual, which was mostly Moros but also had a significant Christian population. Having seen and heard about the zones of peace in other parts of Mindanao, in 1998 Bual’s community declared itself a zone of peace, and two prominent NGOs in the area, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and Kadtuntaya Foundation Inc. (KFI), aided in the establishment and training of local officials. They had rules including non-display of arms, and had created Barangay Peace Action Teams (BPATs) to keep the area and population secure. Most of the development projects have been with the help of CRS and KFI, although USAID has also put in support.
With a plethora of options in creating and organizing zones/spaces of peace, it seems that each town faced its own advantages and challenges. One similarity, though, that we observed was that, the establishment of a zone/space of peace does not serve the function of stopping the violence. It was very curious indeed to see, against what I had understood from my readings, that all of the barangays we visited still experienced violence from time to time, whether it was from the Communist New People’s Army in Nabandasan, the MILF in Baruyan, or rido (tribal conflict) in Bual. The dynamic that instead changed, was that the local population was unified enough to flee together. That was something that I hadn’t necessarily been expecting, but knowing about zones of peace, I understand better that they can’t really stop violence altogether, but rather they serve as more innovative ways to avoid or deal with violence.