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BMFI leads Mindanao
generals engage in peace building
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY -- Early last Thursday (Aug. 25), the offices of Balay Mindanao Foundation, Inc. teemed with combat camouflage uniforms, some of them with stars on their collars, as if war erupted anew in Mindanao and the BMFI’s “peace center” converted into a war room. What was surprising, though, was that the generals, and some colonels, obliged to BMFI’s polite request not to bring firearms inside. There was no need to bring those instruments of war, because for the rest of the day, Mindanao’s highest ranking soldiers -- along with representatives from civil society, local governments, the church, the academe and others -- were attending a roundtable discussion on how to equip the Armed Forces’ Southern Command (SouthCom) with skills on conflict management and peace building. Almost a week earlier, a similar gathering was held in Zamboanga City, where their counterparts in Mindanao’s western half tackled the same issue. At the end of the day, civilian peace advocates were surprised that the military, although trained to wage war, could also help make peace. “I thought soldiers can’t be instruments of peace,” said Deng Giguiento, a known peace advocate of the Catholic Relief Services’ Mindanao office. “Pwede pala (It’s possible)!” She was almost in tears as she recapped the days’ discussions. “Admittedly, we have become part of the problem in the conflict in Mindanao,” said Brig. Gen. Raymundo Ferrer, commanding officer of the Army’s 103rd Infantry Brigade based in Basilan, referring to stories of abuses by soldiers, thus earning the ire of the civilians.
He narrated how some lowly paid soldiers go into the battle field, in villages abandoned by residents because of the war. Then a soldier finds a chicken roaming around and, believing the animal must have no owner, butchers it for dinner. “But for the residents going back to their homes after the war, ‘Ninakaw ng mga sundalo ang mga manok namin!’ (The soldiers stole our chickens!)” Ferrer said. “Unfortunately, people remember these stories,” he pointed out. “But we also couldn’t be part of the solution if we weren’t part of the problem,” added the general from the land of the Abu Sayyaf. For Ferrer, being part of the solution means actively reaching out to the people of Basilan, engaging them in discussions on how to help bring about peace in the “paradise island” with an image as a “haven of terrorists.” A graduate of the Mindanao Peace Institute initiated by Giguiento’s group, as well as a fellow of the Asian Institute of Management’s (AIM) “bridging leadership” program, Ferrer used everything he learned in school to get the people’s support. He also trained his soldiers how to handle conflicts, and conducted values formation seminars to members of the Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Unit (CAFGU).
Ferrer said that Basilan residents, who feared the military not long ago, now respect and trust the soldiers. “Our image has now become of protector instead of oppressor, of peace builders instead of plain warriors,” he said. “You might have wondered why you can’t read Basilan in the news these days,” he joked. Across the sea, in the islands of Sulu, SouthCom Deputy Commander Ben Dolorfino, an Ilonggo who embraced Islam when he married his Tausug wife more than 20 years ago, is working along parallel lines. “In Sulu, we have all forms of violence. From insurgency to terrorism to ridos and ethnic violence,” he said. “Maybe when one thinks of a place in the Philippines that is the most violent, I’m sure it would be Sulu,” he added. Dolorfino, who also attended a seminar on bridging leadership, organized the various sectors of Sulu and formed an informal group that calls itself “Lambitungha Lupah Sug,” which translates to “The Fireflies of Sulu.” “We maybe small, but we can provide the light to transform Sulu,” he said. The examples of Ferrer and Dolorfino are what BMFI and its friends want to replicate all over Mindanao. Ariel Hernandez, BMFI’s executive director, said they want to help transform the military from a “war machinery” to become proponents of the “culture of peace.” This BMFI -- with the help of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, the Department of National Defense, SouthCom and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAF) -- intends to do with a series of trainings on conflict management and peace building involving the brigade and battalion commanders, who will in turn reecho the training to their fellow soldiers, and implement peace building efforts in their respective communities.
The program, too, will involve other stakeholders in the area -- among them local government officials, national line agencies, civil society groups and the media -- in joint workshops with the military so they could work on strategies from the military and civilian perspective. Kaloy Manlupig, BMFI president, said that the group’s experience helping build peace in the communities where they operate in Misamis Oriental, including settling long-time feuds among the Higaonon tribal communities, will contribute a lot in promoting the culture of peace. BMFI has developed a two-week course dubbed “OP Kors” (for “Operation Peace Course), and has already finished six of such seminars with about 40 participants each. The group’s experiences in this series of peace building workshops resulted in a resource book for peace builders titled “Panday Kalinaw.” Klause Preschle, KAF country representative, has committed to fund the program through BMFI, all the way through a semestral recall where officers and their civilian counterparts will meet again to assess progress of the project, as well as the publication of a manual that could be used to train more stakeholders.
Fortunately for BMFI and its partners, the generals are responding positively. At the roundtable discussion here, the military officers were one in saying that the AFP needs a transformation, and that they should be helping in peace building. The Defense Department, too, is backing the program. “Let us seize the opportunity to work together for peace and make a difference,” said Antonio Santos, undersecratary for operations, during last Thursday’s meeting. There were some disagreements among the generals, though, specifically on the methods, like if they have to include junior officers or not. Maj. Gen. Rodolfo Obaniana, commander of the 6th Infantry Division based in Maguindanao, said that subordinates might question their superior before carrying out an order if the latter is in line with the military’s peace efforts. But Ferrer was quick to reply that in his Basilan experience, including even the lowly CAFGUs in the trainings led to benefits. He noted, for instance, that since the CAFGUs are from the communities, they have a big role to play because they know the locals as against the regular troops who are usually strangers. |
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Helping Build Empowered and Sustainable Communities in Mindanao. Helping Build Peace.