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Sunday, September 17, 2006
Setting up cooperatives for former rebels
By Mia E. Abellana
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
Tagbilaran City—Authorities say they may have found the solution to the country’s decades-old insurgency problem. They are calling it “the Bohol experience.”
Cooperatives set up for the former rebels who have decided to start a new life are what the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) hopes to duplicate around the country.
Secretary Jesus Dureza calls it “social integration” for rebel returnees.
Adela Membrillo, 46, joined the communist movement in 1998.
She was tasked to organize peasants in her barangay and encouraged them to join public demonstrations in Tagbilaran City.
Years later, she began to doubt if she still believed in the practices of the movement.
“Kon duna man gud ka’y sayop, delikado na ang imong kahimtang. Wan a ko nakauyon sa ilang mga pamaagi (If you made a mistake, then your life was in danger. I no longer believed in the movement’s methods),” she said.
She added that as time went on, she noticed that the things the rebels told her about the government were not true.
Membrillo claimed she was a coordinator for Bayan Muna in Danao town and a volunteer for Karapatan-Bohol.
She also reportedly served as an organizer for Hugpong sa mga Mag-uumang Bol-anon (Humabol), which is affiliated with these militant groups.
When she met soldiers of the 15th Infantry Battalion based in Danao, Bohol last June, she claimed it was then that she decided to leave the group.
Now that she has left, she does not know where to earn a living to support her family.
She hopes to get financial support, become a beneficiary of a livelihood program, be given a job or given skills training so she can move on.
She asked that her photo not be taken as she is afraid members of the sparrow unit will identify her and target her for purging.
Some of her former comrades sought refuge in the Rajah Sikatuna Multi-Purpose Cooperative, which is within the confines of the 302nd Brigade in Barangay Katipunan, Carmen, Bohol.
Francisco Payot, 46, leads 10 members of the cooperative.
He was a member of the NPA Front 1 Committee of the Bohol Island Command from 1995 to 2000, until he got frustrated over promises that party leaders were unable to fulfill.
Today, the members of the cooperative live within the camp and have begun to engage in duck raising and farming.
During the celebration of Peace Consciousness Month at the cooperative’s hut, Payot asked local officials if they could have funds for housing and farm implements.
Dureza answered his requests with a P350,000 check from President Arroyo.
Aside from the Rajah Sikatuna Multi-Purpose Cooperative, two other cooperatives composed of rebel returnees are based in Bohol and were funded by the same agencies.
The Composite Farmers Multi-Purpose Cooperative led by Agapito Eduava used the funds they got for a lending business.
Composite also received P50,000 from the Provincial Government of Bohol and P12,000 from OPAPP.
Twenty persons were given P2,500 cash each for joining the Panaghiusa Uban sa mga KR (Kanhing Rebelde).
Dureza assured that a third cooperative, Bayanihan, and the still unnamed cooperative to be led by Membrillos, will also get funds from his office soon.
Maj. Gen. Cardozo Luna, commanding general of Central Command, said the program’s method is the “total approach to solving insurgency.”
Nearly 80 rebel insurgents in Bohol have surrendered. About 20 of these left the communist movement since June 2005.
Luna said the program was aimed at informing rebel leaders that insurgency “was not welcome in Bohol anymore.” (MEA)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (September 17, 2006 issue)
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