1st of 3 parts

"Kalinaw Mindanaw." This is the clarion call of all 5,000 active cooperatives that constitute the Mindanao Cooperative Movement.

It is not an ordinary people’s movement because it is not of a kind that suddenly looms to respond to pressing issues and then vanishes in the corridor of time when the passions die down. It is not one to belong to that Shakespearian lamentation, “out, out brief candle; life is just a walking shadow, a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.”

Though slow and gradual in its growth like the soils forming a rock over time, the cooperative movement that began when Dr. Jose Rizal was exiled in Dapitan over a hundred years ago, has now solidly grown whose strength is manifested in the critical mass of over one and a quarter million members.

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That movement which has become a democratic force in itself is now taking an affirmative action to question the very reason why the Mindanao war which is the second longest running conflict in the history of the world cannot deviate from that historical flow of violence. It will put to test whether VOX POPULI (voice of the people) is indeed VOX DEI (voice of God) If it is the will of the people of Mindanao to stop war by uprooting the causes of conflict, can that sovereign will prevail over diabolical design to perpetuate violence? How can the darkness of anger and hatred defeat the light of oneness and peace?

The movement has been up to the task of being a transformational leading edge geared towards social change based on social justice, equity and sustainable development. This time, it must address a central issue that unless resolved will just make all development efforts mere palliatives.

Thus, with a firm collective intent to advance Peace in Mindanao, the cooperatives together with the kindred are coming together on October 29, 2009 at Xavier University Gymnasium, Cagayan de Oro City.

There is now the increasing awareness that the root cause of poverty that breeds conflict in Mindanao is the social exclusion and powerlessness of the people to have access and control over their resources. Social scientists and development experts have come up with studies disclosing that poverty in Mindanao is rooted, not in the lack of resources (because we have so much), but in the powerlessness of the people; that to combat poverty, measures must be taken to empower them.

As a fundamental step, the marginalized sectors must now harness their collective potentials, build their own coalition and make cooperatives the vehicle of their empowerment and development.

That being the case, cooperativism may as well be the answer because cooperatives are, by nature and nurture, the coalitions of the poor to democratize wealth and power and therefore lessen economic and social disparities.

Being politically and ideologically neutral, cooperatives have shown that all warring forces can come together in the spirit of unity. In fact, in the region, we have cooperatives of the police and the military and cooperatives of former MNLF combatants. Cooperatives’ high adherence to universally-accepted principles and values is the unifying force that cuts across beliefs, ideologies, class, gender and race.

We can showcase blueprints where socially marginalized sectors are now in control of their ecological resources through their cooperatives. Even the agrarian reform program cannot be successful without the beneficiaries advancing their interest through their respective cooperatives.

In our quest for peace, the road may be long and arduous; the climb may be steep, but we will get because the peace building process of the cooperatives directly responds to the causes of conflict.

To concretely participate in the process of peace building, the cooperatives in Mindanao have forged their oneness to advance the agenda for peace. The first is on cutting the head of an agricultural system called conventional agriculture that is only successful in robbing us of our food security, in fettering the peasantry from costly technologies and in stripping the soil of is natural fertility. Indeed, there can be no peace if people are hungry.

We understand very well that the long term development in Mindanao can be won or lost through agriculture. Poverty is very glaring in the rural communities, highly attributed to a kind of farming system anchored on conventional agriculture. Because of this, farming has benefited everyone (the local compradors, the chemical fertilizer dealers, the usurers, etc.) except those who have done the back-breaking job—the poor farmers. Conventional agriculture has robbed the rural communities of farming which should belong to them. The inhabitants are further marginalized, thus contributing to negative peace, if not, to conflict. As countervailing measures, the cooperatives are shifting to natural, organic, ecological and even bio-dynamics farming. The first battlecry is agriculture for peace. (To be continued tomorrow)