ON THE road towards Cotabato City for a coverage of the other side of the war in Mindanao that would take us to four provinces and two cities in four days, it is hard to speak out loud why the roadsides are now filled with makeshift tents and shacks when otherwise the vast and empty tracks of land on both sides of the road cannot be blurred even if you are driving at the speed of over 100 kilometers per hour.

Deep into the heart of the conflict, trail of destruction -- burnt houses, abandoned homes and ubiquitous presence of checkpoints and war materiel -- are eerie testaments of the war.

What's your take on the Mindanao crisis? Discuss views with other readers

Of course, we are living in troubled times and disturbing scenes are fast numbing one's senses.

Many would argue that journalists covering the conflict in Mindanao couldn't afford to be emotionally attached to events unfolding before their very eyes.

Yet one cannot totally dissociate his or her self from realizing that the war is affecting not only the combatants from both sides of the conflicts.

It is also sublimely creating different levels of consciousness and commitment on journalists covering the war and affecting the quality of their reportage.

It is not surprising therefore that both the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) are griping about stories that are heavy on body counts, fleeting in coverage, full of inaccuracies and misquotes and, most especially, lacking in context.

Of course, either of the side of the conflict wants their version of the stories. Who would not? After all, beyond the war of attrition, this is a battle of winning the hearts and minds of the people.

Ugly face of the war

This war -- the armed resistance of the Moro people in their quest for a homeland -- has already claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of combatants and civilians in almost 40 years of the conflict.

In the hills and into the marshlands of Maguindanao and in the sparsely populated interiors of Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Norte, the staccato of gunfire, the booming thunder of howitzers, the roaring decibels of chopper engines and the ominous flights of fighter planes ready to drop their package of deaths are loud testaments that the war is here to stay.

Major General Raymundo Ferrer, commanding general of the 6th Infantry Division based in Awang, Maguindanao, said he does not see an immediate end to this brutal conflict.

The general is heading a unified area command where MILF commander Ameril Umbra Kato and his men seem to have found a bottomless pit and wellspring of guerilla fighters.

"They are continuously being reinforced with fresh troops," Ferrer said while visiting General Santos City.

The general might as well said that his men are virtually constricted along the national highways, especially the one that connects Datu Saudi Ampatuan to Datu Piang (formerly Dulawan town of the undivided Cotabato Empire).

His troops could not venture out of the highways without mobilizing a whole platoon or a company of soldiers. Less than thirty minutes into the marshland and the hills from either side of the road lay MILF regulars waiting in ambush.

Even in the safety of their barracks and detachments, government soldiers are not immune to relentless sniping and occasional harassments. Making them sitting ducks and frustrating them even more.

Only the heavy guns and aerial assets of the military are providing the foot soldiers the comfort pillows they badly needed in the battlefield.

When journalists visited the headquarters of the 64th Infantry Battalion in Datu Saudi Ampatuan, four rounds of 105 howitzers where fired towards the direction of Barangay Dapiawan where a fierce encounter occurred just hours before we arrived.

Ever observant, journalists counted exactly 58 seconds before the echo of the exploding projectile was heard from the barracks where the howitzer rounds were fired.

A young Army lieutenant said counting the time the sound traveled back, it must have taken no more than 45 seconds to hit the target, which was just 11 kilometers away. It spoken with nary a tinge of emotion.

In the interior town of Munai in Lanao del Norte where residents of 23 of its 26 barangays have fled their homes to the safety of evacuation centers scattered throughout the municipal hall compound, soldiers belonging to the 104th Infantry Brigade have set up barracks in the Poblacion center.

First Lieutenant Joyner Gascon, commanding officer of the Charlie Company tapped to secure the area, said residents has welcomed their presence there.

But behind his back, elderly residents as well as women and young evacuees said the presence of government soldiers in their area has disrupted their daily lives.

Twenty two-year-old Piliante, who declined to give his full name, said they left their homes because they were afraid of the soldiers.

When asked why they would be then living in evacuation centers surrounded by soldiers, he said they felt secured in the town center. His comments should be taken as a measure of precaution. There is safety in numbers, so to speak.
Residents there, including local government employees, spoke highly of MILF leader Abdullah Macaapar, a.k.a. Kumander Bravo.

"He is a good man," said one man in heavily-accented Tagalog.

Kumander Bravo, they said, put a stop to robbery, gambling and illegal drugs in their place. In fact one even volunteered to call Bravo if journalists covering the story wanted to meet the elusive but controversial MILF field commander.

They know Kumander Bravo, holed up in a nearby village across the border with Lanao del Sur, will be back in their village. "When Bravo says he will come back, he will," another resident said.

It is a stark contrast to the local government unit where 23-year-old town mayor Moamar Salang Maquiling holds office only on Mondays -- that is if he ever holds one -- and town employees are gone from office after their noon sambayang, a traditional Muslim religious prayer.

In fact, Lt. Gascon said he has not seen the mayor in the three months that he arrived in the area.

With an absentee mayor as Maquiling, who needs a government in Munai?

Everybody wants peace but...

What would it take to end this internecine conflict that is fast shaping up into a war of attrition?

In the confines of their offices and headquarters, leaders and officers of both the MILF and the AFP profusely speak about ending the war and going through the peace process.

Both sides of the war are undeniably war-weary and battle-scarred. But nobody is ready to budge and take a step backward.

Major General Ferrer admitted military operations alone will not solve the conflict and end the war.

In a recent interview, Ferrer said the military mindset and orientation is anathema to peace.

"(Many officers) thought when we talk peace we lose our fighting spirit," he said but also added that "all wars in peace."

Within the mid-level officers of the AFP, a transformation, albeit slow, is shaping up.

Many officer junior officers have not tasted what it was to be a military man and a powerful figure during the Martial Law years.

Today, it is not uncommon for majors, lieutenant colonels and colonels to used words such as conflict "management," "peace building" and "transformation," amid the war in Mindanao.

Sarangani Governor Miguel Rene Dominguez is less optimistic. He said it will take a generation to heal the wounds of the conflict in Mindanao.

"Today's leadership, both in the military and the in rebel forces, are first generations of frontline combatants who have seen the worse of the conflict. It will not be easy to overcome their prejudices and biases," the governor said.

But he also hastened to add that it will require the political will of the national leadership to put an end to the Mindanao conflict.

MILF spokesperson Mohagher Iqbal said the failed signing of the Memorandum on Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) has doomed the peace process.

He blamed the ruckus created by politicians who he said have never hid their contempt towards Muslims in Mindanao.

While professing that they are still honoring the ceasefire agreement it has entered into with the Philippine government, the MILF also insists that further talks should be based on the failed MOA-AD.

MILF vice chair Ghazali Jaafar ominously warned that it is either "MOA or war."

Any peace agreement, he added will definitely fail if the thorny issue of the Moro ancestral domain is not addressed.

Reflections

Colonel Benito de Leon, commanding officer of the 104th IB based just outside Iligan City and who is now on his third tour of duty in Lanao del Norte, said he has seen the ugly faces of the conflict in Mindanao.

Once, he said, in search for cellular phone signal up in the mountains of Munai where they had just cleared the area following skirmishes with the MILF, he stumbled into an abandoned hut. While sitting, he saw a picture of the child and several medals hanging on the wall.

"Ang daming medalya, eh (There were lots of medals)," he narrated.

He said he immediately ordered his men not to take the picture. He said it has become standard operating procedure for soldiers to take photographs left behind by feeling residents to verify their identities later.

"Pumasok sa isip ko, ano kaya ang maging kinabukasan na maibibigay natin dito sa batang ito (It occurred to my mind, what future will we give to this child)? I was touched," the 48-year-old colonel said.

It was a poignant reminder that in war, it is the children who suffered the most.

In Munai, seven of the eleven deaths at the evacuation center have died of diseases that under normal circumstances would have been easily attended to.

On our way back to Iligan City, we have to rush a 28-day-old child born at the evacuation center on October 2. The child was convulsing, her face almost ashen white.

An OMI priest from Cotabato City who joined the fact finding mission raised P5,000 from the team and further got a pledge from his fellow religious for the child to be admitted at the Iligan Provincial Hospital.

One day of another delay of medical care and the child would have become the 12th victim of the continuing displacement in Munai alone.

In Datu Piang, we met along our way into the town proper the 11th child to die in the evacuation center who was about to be buried amid the afternoon drizzle.

No doubt, similar stories are to be repeated in many other evacuation centers in Mindanao.

Who knows, these might be the stories that would end the war in Mindanao.

For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Pampanga.

For Bisaya stories from General Santos.Click here.

(This section is updated every Monday)

(November 17, 2008 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.