Challenges to Peacebuilding in Mindanao

Peace is a conflated issue in Mindanao, everyone that could, has taken a crack at it. There are so many different philosophies and issues that the idea of peace covers that you are left wondering peace according to whom? Because, everyone has their own take on peace, for example every religious faction sees peace differently, the foreign NGOs see it differently, the government sees it differently and even the kids are seeing and understanding it differently. Peace education is one of the key ways that the national government has recommended that the topic be approached. The idea is, that if young people learn and understand the importance of peace from an early age, they will have a greater appreciation for it. However, what exactly is being done to teach peace to the young ones?

From what we gathered, not much. Schools are labeled zones of peace if the administration decides that it wants to be a zone of peace school and there is an unspoken agreement that no violence should take place near or within this school. Schools that are proactive (very few) send their teachers to receive training on peace and reconciliation but we did not hear of any targeted training provided by the government for teachers to teach students about peace. One very curious fact we heard at a school in the city of Columbio was that the students are not actually taught the history of the conflict, but rather the focus is placed on peaceful behavior. I understand that it probably won’t serve a real purpose teaching young children the history of the conflict – may even traumatize them – but in the long run isn’t it better to know what has taken place in your country to understand how important peace really is. The role of the department of education is highly lacking in promoting peace education and providing any substantial help to these schools or teachers. The curriculum is there but hardly any textbooks or teachers prepared to teach the topics mentioned in the curriculum.

These signs can be found in front of schools all over Mindanao

I would like to point out one idea that has been highly successful in teaching students the importance of peace. They are called “peace tables”, they are physical tables allocated to discussing quarrels between students and coming to an understanding and taking responsibility. Peace tables are the shining heroes of the peace education process; teachers gave us examples of how students from very different backgrounds come to an agreement over their differences. I think the idea of children openly stating what is on their minds and discussing why they may think differently is simply brilliant. I believe these techniques would probably even serve them well when they are older because the idea of understanding and appreciating the differences between themselves and others is even more important when they are older. Education in the Philippines and a concrete role played by the department of education requires a lot of work. The government has realized that children are the key to attaining peace in the future, now they just need to get serious about it.

Peace Tables explained

When I had first decided to do participate in this field research trip, I had joined because of my interest in learning about the displaced populations within Mindanao due to the ongoing violent strives. After the first couple days, I realized that the kind of data I would need to analyze displacement trends would be unattainable because of lack of time. I ended up researching instead the BBL, but I wanted to write about what we did hear about displacement. Over the span of the conflict, over millions of people have been displaced in Mindanao either due to violence or erratic weather. I want to go over two of the main displacement factors we learned on the ground.

Tulunan is a small city in the Maguindanao region, and according to the mayor of the city, displacement is very real within her city and surrounding areas as well. Displacement is temporary – anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months – and periodic, taking place every couple months according to where a fighting breaks out and how bad it is. Thus, the cities, including Tulunan have to be prepared, that is an area – usually a school or city hall – is designated to temporarily housing the displaced people and the local government provides food. People are expected to return to their homes and livelihoods after a reasonable amount of time, but according to the mayor, may people do not return to their homes because they feel that it is unsafe and are thus forced to locate alternate housing and work. This is a huge problem, because there are no jobs for people who are displaced to occupy in other regions, the government does not want to create a dependency culture, so people are left to fend for themselves. Cities such as Tulunan have an ad-hoc reintegration program that attempts to provide stress debrief and food but these programs are temporary and more often than not have no funding.

Another type of displacement that takes place often in Mindanao is due to the erratic weather, Mindanao is right in the middle of the typhoon belt and many communities have had to move when rivers overflow or due to mudslides. In 2012, Typhoon Bopha displaced close to 3 million people. The government does provide evacuation spaces but they are temporary, people are expected to locate housing or rebuild because their house have disappeared because of excessive flooding. The temporary housing that the government created in 2012 in Cagayan de Oro has now become permanent and people are still residing in them as there is no where else to go. The apartments are truly what you would could match stick boxes, barely one room and another room with kitchen and living space combined, and some of these places are housed by 5-8 people. The basic needs that I had mentioned in a previous blog come to mind, as people are surviving and making the best of what they have. Displacement in Mindanao is a very serious issue and one of the main reasons that the government is considering the BBL because addressing the root causes such as violence may help address future displacement.

So, last week we finally had our long awaited presentation on our trip to Mindanao on campus. I am not going to say that I was exactly excited for it because I am a terrible public speaker and having to act a role in front of a group of people is the worst thing that could happen to be. I went in to our rehearsal extremely nervous because I did not know the format of the presentation. Once everyone gathered and we started talking about the ideas that the planning team had come up with and got on the stage to act out our roles, suddenly everything fell right into place. Prof. Iyer was right in saying that we all knew what we had heard on the ground and what we wanted to convey to people, it just needed to said. Even though the rehearsal was tiring and lasted longer than we anticipated, the two groups (Los Angeles team and Mindanao team) came together seamlessly and helped each other achieve the results we all wanted. I think Prof. Iyer was the only common denominator between the groups and helped us understand the commonalities between the two very different places with very similar problems.

The Mindanao team!

Now, I am left wondering how and when will I ever get together with this group to talk and discuss everything that comes to mind about our trip. Off course we learned a great deal on this trip, not just about the conflict but about people and what compels people to flee their homes and take up arms. But I think we also learned a great deal about ourselves and the very tiny bubble of MIIS and what our education means and what do we want out of it. I know these are very big ideas and not everyone on the trip will agree with me but I think we were all compelled to contemplate various aspects of ourselves through out the trip, the debriefs, the conversations we had about Mindanao with others and even as I sit right now to right this blog. Self reflection is key in getting the most out of a field experience and I think or hope that we all have reflected to appreciate the lessons we learned. I want to thank everyone on the trip for allowing me the opportunity to learn from them and Prof. Iyer for all the work she put into giving us a life changing experience.

A stop along the way…

A sign in Maguindanao promoting BBL.

The Bansamore Basic Law (BBL) was all the hype when we arrived in Davao. To sum it up in a sentence, the BBL is a peace accord put forth by the MILF to the government of Philippines replaces the previous peace accord of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). Some of the key differences are that MNLF had proposed the previous accord but BBL is the handy work of MILF, BBL would also bring Sharia law to the region, along with expanding the ARMM region to include more cities. So everywhere we went, we asked people about their thoughts on the BBL, do the support it? Do they think it will pass? Everyone off course, depending on their political leaning had a different response. Ranging anywhere from extreme excitement for the inclusive methods this new law would bring to intense disdain for being discriminatory to every other group of people in the region, BBL became a big part of our trip. One of the things that we heard that stood out was from a leader of the Columbio Multisectoral Ecology Movement Office (CMEM), she said that even if the BBL does pass or if it does not pass, violence in the region in inevitable because of the contrasting views of opposing factions. On the last day of our trip, I had jotted down in my journal that chances for BBL are looking well, but looking back now, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

A sign outside the Consortium of Bangsamoro Civil Society in support of BBL.

Due to the Mamasapano incident, in which over 60 individuals were killed in a police operation, including 18 MILF members. Before this incident even occurred, many people were against the BBL and the idea of government reaching an according with another rebel group. The Mamasapano incident provided just the right reasoning for bashing BBL and reminding the people of Philippines that the government should not engage with outlaws. Immediately after the incident, all talks on the BBL were officially suspended; leaving people that had been working to promote it for the past two years foundering for air. I am again reminded of the statement that the leader from CMEM had made, that either way violence would be inevitable, but the BBL is not even close to passing and the chances have become so slim. Talks are officially to resume on April 20^th, and I have no inkling as to what will come out of them. It was easier to gauge and understand the opinions of people when we were on the ground, now just reading the latest news clips thousands of miles away just leaves me confused and frustrated.

A sign outside the Consortium of Bangsamoro Civil Society counting down days till the decision on BBL is made.

Any place around the world that is rife with conflict, practitioners think immediately how to resolve this conflict and how to bring peace. That’s what we learn in school too, various conflict resolution techniques and what peace means. While in the field, I learned the simplest and the most intrinsic ways that people wanted peace. The average Mindanoan is not concerned about the policies being enacted at the national level or to understand the impact the conflict in Mindanao has had on them psychologically. Every organization (private or federal) that we heard from spoke to the need for good governance and the various methods they are using to train people in good governance. However, after talking to everyday people and what they need, all they wanted was food on their table and shelter over their heads and maybe good governance. That is not to say that good governance and understanding the underpinnings of a conflict is not important, but rather that while we pursue these avenues, we forget about the most basic needs that human beings have.

Food served to us at a civil society organization.

Since I have been back to Monterey, I have seriously contemplated how unnecessary and conflated our needs are on this side of the world. Our lives are so complex and there is so much that we constantly want…yet, even if we do achieve that, there is always more. For me, that speaks to our basic needs, and how much we take them for granted. Looking at the bigger picture, our privilege justifies these needs while others are barely able to put food on their tables. I am not exactly sure where I am going with this, but I have been meaning to write about the insane privilege we posses in the western world. The people we met in Mindanao, especially those that are affected by these macro level policies and the laws just want their basic needs met. I am not sure if we as a society have forgotten that people only need the simplest things to survive, but then again, these very conflicts exist over these very simple things such as food sources and land.

The food in the image above was grown in the land behind the house.

While we were in Mindanao, listening to people tell us their stories, their insider story of the conflict that has plagued the region for years, I would always find myself thinking about how hard it is to tell your stories to an outsider. Especially when those stories are about wounds that never healed and I am asking someone to open up and tell me about these wounds again. I soon found out that the retelling of these stories may not have necessarily been painful but rather cathartic, as people were willingly tell us about violent community clashes and personal losses as though they needed to tell someone and they just wanted someone to listen. It is pretty straight forward if you think about it, how often have we found ourselves in a situation where we feel the need to convey a thought or story to someone but that did not happen. When a conflict lasts as long as the one in Mindanao, people have more and more painful stories to tell and most people are not heard; and you find yourself in a place where someone is willing to listen, you tell.

The stories we heard were so diverse in subjects and time that we would often have to confirm with each other whether we had heard some pieces correctly. The impact that these stories made means that these stories will never be forgotten either for the teller or for the listener. One of these stories that have stuck with me is that of a former female MNLF fighter. The reason I mention “female” is because it was a huge deal to be able to meet a former fighter and that too a woman, it helped us understand a new side of the conflict we didn’t know about. The former fighter retold her story of how she joined MNLF and the various roles she played, such as providing financial assistance, food security, covertly delivering messages and an impromptu medic. She nonchalantly mentioned that at times they had to perform a serious operation such as severing a limb. She also told us that she had joined MNLF because it was a way of seeking safety within the jungles rather than stay at home and be abused my the military. I had read about some soldiers at the time sexually abusing women but when she mentioned that the reasoning for her joining a rebel group was because home was no longer safe, we were all left aghast. I had put a face to a horrid fact I had read in an article, and that is something I will never forget.