CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, Philippines?Raising placards and shouting calls for government action, a handful of people picketed outside a town mayor?s office to oppose the entry of soldiers into a hinterland village where a peasant leader was earlier killed.

Soldiers could be involved in the killing, the victim?s son believes. The military, meanwhile, suspects that his peasant organization is being used by communist rebels to infiltrate the village.

Nothing conclusive was established about these perceptions which factored heavily in how the situation was considered and, hence, got muddled up.

It was a role playing exercise for 20 junior officers of the Army?s 4th Infantry Division and three officers of the Philippine National Police (PNP) in northern Mindanao who took the Operation Peace Course (OP Kors!) late last year.

Conducted by the nongovernment Balay Mindanaw International Center for Peace, OP Kors! aims to popularize peace-building among different sectors and deepen initiatives for peace in Mindanao.

According to course director Leonardo Bautista, effective peace-building work requires the ability to also see things from the standpoint of other people so as to understand why they act or think the way they do.

?Solving a conflict entails that people should try to look at the issue from different perspectives,? said Saturnina Rodil, professor at Mindanao State University?s Institute for Peace and Development in Mindanao (IPDM).

Rodil emphasized that a peace-builder must imbibe this attitude?which is developed by learning?to view the world beyond the prism of what one has been accustomed to and through many lenses.

Soldiers are trained to respond to conflict in a distinctly different way than peace advocates. But by embarking on peace-building work, they must cast aside several approaches they have been conditioned to take, like fighting and achieving superiority of force, Rodil explained.

Bautista observed that owing to their respective mandates and organizational size, the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the PNP are ?very big reserves of human resource? for managing conflicts in their areas of assignment before things get worse.

?Winning the people?

The AFP?s Eastern Mindanao Command (Eastmincom) has been training its soldiers to become conflict managers since 2006, targeting 150 brigade and battalion commanders and executive officers, and 300 junior officers to learn the ropes of conflict management and peace-building.

Eastmincom faces the challenge of dealing with the communist insurgency in the Caraga and southern Mindanao, and the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which keeps community strongholds in North Cotabato, Maguindanao and Sarangani.

By empowering soldiers to pursue peace-building initiatives, the command hopes to help the AFP develop more viable strategies for ?winning the war by winning the people,? said Col. Julieto Ando, the unit?s chief for civil-military operations.

?Hindi palaging utak pulbura lahat. It is better to build than to destroy,? said Ando, who rose from the ranks and has been in military service for 36 years.

Soldiers, he said, must help build consensus on a shared future for the people in the communities.

Lt. Gen. Raymundo Ferrer, Eastmincom commanding general, stressed that ?apart from clearing the villages of insurgents, it is important to gain the trust of the people.?

The best measure of winning the people is reflected in whether ?the community celebrates with us when we win,? he said.

Primacy of dialogue

OP Kors! graduates are expected to be knowledgeable about human rights and the international humanitarian law, including how these instruments interact with the duties of the state?s security forces.

They are also familiar with the concept of human security, which is a comparatively broader and inclusive notion than the state-centered idea of national security to which current military and related policies are largely based.

In the course, they are introduced to the various avenues of peace-building work under the National Peace Plan.

For soldiers, playing an active role in pushing multisectoral initiatives for community development defines the new ?battlefield.? The core outcome is for OP Kors! cadres to confidently apply the essentials of analyzing and dealing with conflicts, most especially doing dialogue.

They are equipped with a general view of historical underpinnings of Mindanao?s myriad conflicts, principally unresolved land claims.

Conditions persist

Given the ?complex character? of the conflicts, Ferrer acknowledged that ?there is no clear end to the insurgency in the next five years; it will only subside.?

?The social conditions that make them (insurgents) thrive persist. Many villages still have no roads, no schools?situations that suggest absence or lack of presence of government,? Ferrer noted.

?The military cannot resolve conflict; it will need political solution, [which, in turn, needs] political will,? he added.

Ferrer explained that the conflicts ?can only be managed from getting worse and becoming unnecessarily violent.?

As an example, Ando pointed to the flare-up of clan wars in villages in central Mindanao. If left unattended, this may spread to other communities and drag MILF combatants into the scene?which can unduly spur AFP action.

Professional soldiers make credible conflict managers, Ferrer said, and forming their corps would require confronting the lingering negative image associated with men in uniform.

He cited stories of abuses, such as ?military checkpoints serving as extortion points.?

Ferrer noted the social animosity created by the counterinsurgency approaches adopted decades ago, such as unleashing anticommunist and anti-Moro cultists and vigilantes. These have altered the meaning of the war and the way it was being waged, distant from the political goals of involved parties.

A hangover of this era could be the reason the presence of soldiers still invites fear among many people. In some areas, especially in MILF-influenced communities, the military is seen as an occupying force.

?You cannot transform an organization by issuing directives every day. It needs reorientation; deliberate efforts, not reactive initiatives,? Ferrer pointed out.

?How the military becomes part of the solution is the leadership challenge,? he added.

Modernizing the mindset

?We don?t appear weak if we undergo the course,? quipped Ando. It was a swipe at the generally macho culture of the defense establishment that is partly fueling militarist thinking in dealing with social conflicts.

?We become a peace-builder and a responsible fighter. If we know that we are on the right track, the more we become skillful in conducting operations,? he added.

Integrating peace-building approaches into the modern mind-set of the soldier will need vital reforms in the policy environment of the defense establishment.

For one, Ando cited redefining victory beyond enemy casualties, weapons captured and surrendered, and villages cleared of insurgent influence.

This will also trigger reform toward a ?balanced scorecard? as the basis of giving merit for military service. ?Insurgency prevention, human development and nation-building? are also equally rewarded.

The prospect of engaging in a far different arena but for a similar objective is firing up the 15th batch of OP Kors! cadres. By putting primacy on the people?s interest, Supt. Herbert Olavides said the work of a peace-builder ?is the true picture of being a public servant.?