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Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Clan conflict still poses peace woes
By Ryan Rosauro
Ozamiz correspondent
THE cycle of violence created by clan conflict or rido has pulled communities into continuing underdevelopment.
The conflicts have led to the burning of houses and destruction of farms.
In Nunungan town, a farmer whose family was involved in a rido said he had moved in another town for fear of being targeted for killing.
This same fear has left vast tracts of fertile agricultural fields unused, reducing, if not completely losing, their opportunity to earn income.
Lanao del Norte Governor Imelda Dimaporo related that a number of road projects in the town was also constantly derailed because of the intensity of the clan conflicts in the town, beneficiary of a focused program promoting high-value vegetables.
The cost of resolving a conflict is quite economically burdensome since blood money is a basic requirement to assuage an injured pride and to pay for actual cost of damage inflicted on properties.
Families could incur debts or have to sell properties in order to raise blood money.
Economics of settlement
In quantifying the monetary settlement, the warring parties first confer with each other, which of the deaths are attributable to their rido, whether it was either of them who killed so-and-so and whether the acts of property destructions relate to their conflict.
Then, financial values are assigned to the destroyed properties and the dead relatives.
Financially valuing the dead becomes contentious when the person killed has a high status in the community.
In one rido in Nunungan town, each dead person was valued at P100,000, quite a fortune in the impoverished hinterlands.
In the settlement of rido, mutual friends and neutral relatives are very significant, most especially if they include personalities whom the parties respect.
Most of the parties or their relatives do not seek help from formal authorities as they still maintain strong affinity with traditional ones.
This is because many of them do not feel strong belongingness to mainstream society because of government neglect.
The effects of secessionist politicization in the past could also bring this.
Harsh punishment
But in a rare case, 13 of 18 clan conflicts in Nunungan town were settled upon the initiative of local government leaders led by Manamparan.
Inspector Jose Patalinghug Jr., then chief of Nunungan town police and who grew up in the area, said it was the townsfolk themselves who complained to them about their being hassled by a rido that stated in 1980, the oldest so far in the town.
These sentiments came out during the village-level participatory public safety planning workshops the police conducted under Patalinghug's leadership.
In every settlement, Patalinghug said, they saw to it that public officials witness the ceremony so that the parties become used to them and hopefully reach out to them when similar conflicts arise.
To date, Patalinghug, who is now assigned in Tubod town, is proud to relate not one of the conflict settlements have slid back.
He stressed the importance of education in transforming the culture of rido and of religion in instilling the morals of non-violence.
The warring parties themselves have implored that "anyone of us who revive the feud which is already settled would be subjected to harsh punishment by the Almighty Allah"
(November 29, 2005 issue)
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