VIOLENT conflicts in Mindanao, with hundreds of thousand internally displaced families, since the 1970s is a big challenge for peace advocates, community development practitioners, and policymakers in our country today. The Bangsamoro peace process aims to address this conflict for more than four decades.
Based on the data from the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP), we have an economic loss of P20 Billion per year or P640 Billion from 1970 to 2001. The All Out War alone of former President Estrada in 2000 cost our government P1.3 Billion. In terms of human casualties, near 120,000 people were killed between 1970 and 1996. In terms of social welfare disruption, around 982,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) during the 2000 All-out-war, and around 600,000 IDPs in the 2008 failure of the implementation of the Memorandum Agreement on the Ancestral Domain (MOA AD). These estimates did not include the Zamboanga Siege and the Marawi Crisis.
With regard to the Marawi Crisis, enacting and ratifying the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) within the Duterte administration becomes a top priority of the government to address the rise of violent extremists groups in Mindanao. However, the BBL alone is not enough. Sustaining peace and development requires strengthening community resiliency, rebuilding and rehabilitating social infrastructure.
To ensure that the BBL will deliver its mandate, and sustain peace, the “horizontal” / non formal peace process needs to be inclusive and participatory. But this is easier said than done. This was my insights in my recent engagement and work with the Philippine Information Agency (PIA)-National Office.
Last April 16 - 17, 2018, the Task Force Bangon Marawi (TFBM) - Information Management and Strategic Communications (StratComm) Support Group conducted the Strategic and Crisis Communication Training for Information Officers of the different member agencies of TFBM in Region 10 and ARMM. It was followed by another batch of participants coming from the 96 Barangay leaders of Marawi City on the 18th of April.
The main objective of the said training was to ensure that all involved working individuals and community leaders are capacitated with the knowledge and skills required in delivering consistent and genuine information on the Marawi rehabilitation.
My task in the said training was to give a lecture on preventing and countering violent extremism. Although I was there as a speaker, I also learned a lot about the recent developments in Marawi rehabilitation. The issues and concerns that are confronted by the TFBM are complex and have different layers and levels of human interactions to deal with different institutions; hence, proper and accurate information dissemination of TFBM are primary importance.
In my more than twenty years of community development work and conflict transformation in Mindanao, I have learned that the key to achieve a sustainable peace is to have inclusive policy in terms of social preparation and project implementation. We need to include all different sectors, families/clans, and ethnic groups in the peace process.
Aside from this, we also need to understand that conflicts have many different levels. Hence, we need to create different mechanisms where we create more opportunities for people to talk and dialogue. We also need to involve key leaders/actors and link them with the relevant issues and groups who may have different views on the matters for rehabilitation.
We also need to enable the grassroots communities to have a space to voice out their grievances and concerns with the government and vice versa.
As a member of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC), I realized that our government must understand that the formal peace talks with the Moro Fronts is a vital move and a mechanism to address the conflict. But this alone cannot achieve sustainable peace. The same with the rehabilitation of Marawi. Our government must look beyond rebuilding the city in terms of roads, bridges, and housing projects. Vital in the work of the government and TFBM is to focus on the social infrastructure of the Meranaw people.
In pursuing this move, the issue of trust is a crucial key to open doors for dialogue and to address gaps in terms of communication. TFBM may have the mandate from the Philippine government. But it also needs legitimacy from the Meranaw people as the mechanism of the government that will support them. TFBM must ensure that there are transparency in terms of their programs and activities. They need to create a wider public participation in rebuilding and rehabilitating Marawi. Without the cooperation of the people from Lanao and Marawi City, it will be impossible to do any intervention.