Local Peace Consultation at Barangay Pagangan, Aleosan, North Cotabato.

Kilian S. Deveza is the Manager of Bangko sa Balay Foundation, Inc (BBFI), currently having his Masteral’s Degree at the Applied Conflict Transformation Studies in the Pannasastra University of Cambodia

Travel broadens our knowledge and enriches our experience as well. The more we travel, the higher we ascend in our perception. St. Augustine_ shared a similar viewpoint when he said that “The world is a book. Those who do not travel read only a page.”

This is where I found my love for outdoors, travel and adventure. I always find it amusing to recall those moments when my cousins and I have to alternately get down from our motorbikes and help each other to either mount back on the bike or negotiate in one of the trickiest and slippery uphill tracks in our hometown in Talakag, Bukidnon.

Likewise, my love for outdoors motivated me to train my son Karl on proper and safe bicycle riding as early when he was just three years old. It of course is still a long wait, but it excites me much to consider Karl as an addition to my motorcycling buddies someday. I also affectionately look forward for my wife to finally be on the steering wheel anytime soon. Undeniably, my love for outdoors, travel and adventure has widened my horizon, and surely there awaits a lot of pleasant discoveries that add meaning to life.

Travelling down south of Mindanao, The Land of Promise is such a wonderful experience. I never thought that my first and most daring trip to North Cotabato, which happened to be like a nerve-wrecking motorcycle road race between my cousin-in-law and I will yield to a series of succeeding fruitful trips (with a different group) to the historic Land of Fortress. During my latest travel to Aleosan, North Cotabato together with the Balay Mindanaw Group of NGOs staff and on-the-job-training students from Xavier University, we conducted another Local Peace Consultation (LPC) workshop in the village of Pagangan. I realized that among the merits in bridging travel and education, the most remarkable is transformation.

Mark Jenkins, an American artist, author and adventurer, has laid way ahead a good sense of insights as the cornerstone of my realization, when he said that: “Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have first-hand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way, you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.”

As one of the facilitators, I “bear witness” on how difficult it is to encourage participation among my Moro brothers and sisters whose lives and dreams have been shattered by violent conflicts which are an aftermath of the “bottomless cruelty of humankind.” Indeed, I have to grapple with their limitations while at the same time draw out from them a unified motivation to move forward hand-in-hand and sketch a navigational course for their journey towards equity, development and peace. Furthermore, my encounter with them compelled me to set aside my biases as much as categorizing them into black-or-white became irrelevant because after all, I can only see them as “victims of war.” Concurrent to that, Bertrand Russell wrote: “War does not determine who is right – only who is left.” In addition, no matter how noble (if it could be noble at all) the motives of war, its toll are always heavier on the real victims – human beings. Listening to their testimonies, I could not help but grasp for air to hold my emotions because I could not even imagine the ordeals that a parent like me may experience in trying to pacify a horrified child while trying to rush for safety. I have been an athlete during my college days but I have never tried carrying a baby on my back and race down the stretch.

Before the LPC was over, Barangay Chairman Gregorio O. Guanzon informed the group that Pagangan has been the favourite battle ground of the opposing armed groups with war occurring almost in regular intervals. Such has been a constant source of frustration among the battle weary victims. On the other hand, I understand that both armed groups have looked forward for more or less a similar goal – a better place and quality of life for everyone. Admittedly too that though they have similar goal, yet they differ in perceiving on how to attain such goal.

As I ponder on all of these, I keep on wondering if ever it would be possible for these arm groups to: 1) transform Pagangan into a peace-negotiating venue rather than a battle ground; 2) walk through the areas badly damaged by the war they created and try to listen to the horrifying experiences of the victims, and 3) consider a paradigm that upholds the dignity of human life regardless of belief and aspirations.

At the very least considering war as a vehicle for change is farfetched. Marie Sklodowska Curie would simply put, “You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals.” Further, it is also hard to believe that war can produce better individuals from among its victims that comprise the community.

Certainly, we are Filipinos – decent men of high integrity. We need to contend that it is not pleasant to be amongst those who constantly ignore reality. Martin Luther King Jr. is absolutely right when he said that, “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

We, therefore, cannot just close our senses for the pursuit of winning a war at the expense of human lives especially those who cannot defend themselves. It’s not even necessary to have an inventory of what have been lost since we can never bring back lost lives and opportunities. What is important and urgent is to adopt peaceful means to settle this deeply rooted conflict and spare the lives and future of the people in Pagangan.

As the spiritual leader Sharon Salzberg said it aptly, “It doesn't matter how long we may have been stuck in a sense of our limitations. If we go into a darkened room and turn on the light, it doesn't matter if the room has been dark for a day, a week, or 10,000 years – we turn on the light and it is illuminated. Once we control our capacity for love and happiness, the light has been turned on.”