Inquirer Mindanao
Caravan brings pain of war to uncaring
By Ryan Rosauro
Mindanao Bureau
First Posted 23:52:00 11/29/2008
Filed Under: Mindanao peace process, Armed conflict
ILIGAN CITY, Philippines—With a traveling bag on her lap, 49-year old Nora Anfone ate lunch aboard a jampacked van from Cagayan de Oro to Kolambugan town in Lanao del Norte on Wednesday. Each time the vehicle negotiates a turn, Anfone and the rest of the passengers had to constantly bear the swaying.
Anfone, a farmer from Pikit, North Cotabato, said she doesn’t mind the inconvenience as they have to rush to catch up on a scheduled stop in a high school where she can have the opportunity to tell her family’s ordeal in evacuating from their home in Takipan village as renewed war in Central Mindanao raged last Aug. 11.
Anfone related hard life at the evacuation center and the lost income opportunities in her family’s five-hectare farm due to the war.
The mother of five is among six evacuees from Pikit, North Cotabato, and Datu Piang and Mamasapano towns in Maguindanao who who joined peace advocates in launching the People’s Caravan for Peace and Solidarity dubbed Duyog Mindanao in Baguio City last Nov. 21.
The caravan, set to culminate in Cotabato City, was aimed at calling attention to the deteriorating humanitarian conditions of evacuees, drum up the call for cessation of hostilities between government troops and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) forces, and push for a restart of the Mindanao peace process.
Its start in Baguio could be a fitting one given that the northern Luzon city is the farthest area from Mindanao that hosts several thousands of Moro merchant families most of whom migrated to start a new life away from the age-old conflict of the island.
During the launch, the so-called “People’s Petition for Peace in Mindanao” was started. It seeks to gather as many signatures from individuals that can be reached along the caravan’s route.
The petition asks both President Macapagal-Arroyo and MILF Chair Ebrahim Murad to uphold peace and return to the negotiating table.
From Baguio, the caravan had stops in Pampanga, Bulacan, Quezon and Batangas before going to Calapan, Iloilo and Bacolod in the Visayas.
At every stop, the participants held forums and discussions about the Mindanao peace situation “in the hope that the public will have increased awareness on the cost and impact of war by bringing the story closer to them.”
From these stops, the caravan participants grew in number. They were about 30 when they left Luzon for the Visayas. Last Wednesday, 43 peace advocates who are community leaders from their respective places have joined Anfone and the five other evacuees in starting the caravan’s Mindanao leg in Cagayan de Oro.
As the caravan entered Mindanao, its participants also resembled a cross-section of the ethno-linguistic origins of the island’s peoples.
Poignant moments
During the Mindanao journey, the caravan visited evacuation centers where participants saw for themselves and interacted with evacuees in Maguindanao, North Cotabato and the Lanao provinces.
Throughout the caravan’s legs, organizers noted the “very warm welcome” it earned from people in Iloilo and Bacolod cities.
“This is actually a message to everyone that Ilonggos and the Moros are friends,” said former journalist Augusto Miclat, executive director of the Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID) that is spearheading the Duyog Mindanao along with other Mindanao-based, national and international peace networks.
For five years now, the provincial government in Negros Occidental has been spearheading observance of the Mindanao Week of Peace.
As the caravan sailed from Bacolod to Cagayan de Oro for the Mindanao leg, 11 Negrenses joined the group.
“We join your call for peace in your place,” Igorot community leader Rema Baban told a crowd of high school students in Kolambugan town which was the main target of the MILF’s attacks last Aug. 18.
“We also suffered the same fate as you experience now,” she added, referring to the conflicts plugging the Cordilleras.
“Ang laban ng Cordillera ay laban ang Mindanao; ang laban ng Mindanao ay laban ng Cordillera,” she stressed.
Mickey Gamboa, a conflict studies graduate student at the University of Saint La Salle in Bacolod, said he is overwhelmed by the people’s solidarity for Mindanao peace.
“I really felt that the issue of Mindanao matters not just for those in Mindanao,” said Gamboa in the sidelines of the caravan.
Gamboa related that while on board the boat from Bacolod to Cagayan de Oro, he joined a group campaigning for signatures for the people’s petition for peace, in the process explaining the importance of Mindanao peace for the entire nation.
The campaign aboard the boat drew in over 500 signatures.
The caravan also enlisted the support of Oriental Mindoro Gov. Arnan Panaligan who endorsed the petition calling for a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Mindanao.
Miclat said that the caravan somehow contributed in the effort to “erase prejudices against the Moro people based on a general public opinion grossly apathetic to the situation and ignorant of the roots of the conflict in Mindanao.”
Miclat added that while most of the Filipinos basically stand for peace, “some of them are drawn to the rhetoric of war in settling the Mindanao problem once and for all.”
“Most of the citizenry - especially those from Luzon and the Visayas- have been mostly exposed to the heavily one-sided picture of a conflict-ridden Mindanao in general” he said.
Dialogue
Towards evening, an obviously tired Anfone boards a van that will take her back to Iligan for the night.
But feeling oblivious of the stress, Anfone said that she is “very happy that there are a lot of people throughout the country who supports the call for peace in Mindanao.”
“There are even those with us who come from other countries,” she pointed out.
She recalled her community of Moro, Lumad and Christians in Pikit who have been living in harmonious coexistence, interrupted only by the intermittent wars.
“I think all these will come to pass if only our leaders emulate what ordinary folks do to resolve disputes: talk,” Anfone said.
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