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Tension over allegations of land grabbing and
thievery in a remote village in Midsayap, North Cotabato, boiled
over into a full-blown confrontation between government troops and
Muslim guerrillas last week. It was the latest strain in a
three-year ceasefire arrangement between the government and the Moro
Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
The Philippine state’s players
have repeatedly declared that issues such as these are small in
comparison with the larger interest of national peace and security
and development for the Bangsamoro and Mindanao. They insist that,
while negotiations have yet to hurdle questions of the expanse of
land to be given the MILF to govern, the peace talks are on track.
But “small” is relative.
Perhaps if you are focused primarily on the bigger picture then
concerns such as the harvest from a parcel of land would seem
trivial. But if you depend on those crops to feed your family until
the next harvest season, then questionable land ownership takes on
more weight.
The most recent conflict in
Barangays Rangaban and Mudseng was rooted in the longstanding feud
between Muslim and Christian residents both claiming to be the
legitimate owners of a tract of farmland. MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu
says the tension in Barangay Rangaban started in 2005.
What triggered the heated
firefight last week, according to the military, was the attack by
the MILF’s 105th Base Command against civilian militias who, along
with their families, were harvesting the season’s crops. The MILF,
meanwhile, claims that the harvest came from farms tilled by for
generations by farmers affiliated with the MILF.
Who are we to believe?
Disinterested parties, such as the Malaysia-led team monitoring the
implementation of the three-year-old ceasefire arrangement,
acknowledge that land disputes are common in southern Mindanao. They
have a string of tales of harvests wasted, farmers gone missing or
harassed arising from conflicting claims of land ownership.
The MILF gets involved in the
quarrel because its guerrillas are also the farmers claiming
ownership of the disputed land. The military, meanwhile, is
duty-bound to protect farmers especially if the local officials
complain that these are “being harassed” by the guerrillas.
The state players have a
mechanism to settle disagreements such as this. And it appears that
the dispute settlement mechanism has been successful so far since
none of these little wars have had a grave impact on the peace
process. Even ranking government and guerrilla officials are firm in
reaffirming their commitment to the talks even while bombs fall on
Rangeban and the burst of Howitzers periodically shatters rural
silence.
I would suppose that the lofty
thought of a final peace agreement between government and Muslim
guerrillas is of little comfort to the hundreds of individuals
forced to flee, once again, by the fighting. The noble goal of
Mindanao peace is always a solace, but not immediately especially
for those who were maimed, widowed or orphaned in the fighting.
We can’t just sit back and wait
for the final peace agreement to be signed and allow these small
wars to continue. They might not impact on national concerns but
they matter a lot to the individuals caught smack in the middle of
the crossfire. And while until ancestral domain for the Muslims is
delineated, how will these thousands of farmers who live off the
land—Muslims and Christians alike—provide for themselves?
UP professor Isiri Abubakar says
the government needs to have a genuine plan for Min-danao
development for the peace agreement to cure the ailments of
Mindanao. By ailments, he refers not just to the armed groups or
questions of security or economic concerns, but also of governance.
He says that corruption is as rampant in the troubled South as it is
in the rest of the country, and this is feeding everything else that
is wrong in our resources-rich South.
We need strong leaders, not
strongmen, to maneuver Min-danao, and the entire country as well,
out of the quagmire it’s been in for the past decades. We need
sincere and genuine leaders who look out for the best interest of
the people and protect them, not necessarily through the use of
firearms and violence, even before peace is attained through
signatures on a piece of paper.
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