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No Mindanao bombing has been reported in the last two
weeks after the announcement that President Gloria Arroyo received
an invitation (or a summon, as critics insist) to visit the United
States after she delivers her State of the Nation Address.
For development workers working
directly or indirectly with the Mindanao evacuees, this precious
time is best spent assessing the damage to the communities, and
providing long-needed relief and psychosocial intervention to some
693,000 evacuees or internally displaced persons still suffering
varying degrees of displacement since August 2008.
The UN Guiding Principles on
Internal Displacement states that the internally displaced are
“persons or group of persons who have been forced or obliged to
flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in
particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed
conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human
rights and natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed
international borders.”
Various reports, as many as the
local, national and international groups now working in Mindanao,
detail the need for immediate and continuous relief for and succor
to the evacuees.
Resource mapping will have to be
done to ensure proper and adequate distribution of assistance to all
affected areas to reach far-flung areas. All sectors and structures
in the community should be reached.
There is need for a programmatic
reintegration assistance to the displaced to ensure better community
reintegration, where possible.
Better data management in
evacuation centers have to be done, as data must be age and sex
disaggregated to identify more appropriate interventions.
Children should be protected, and
psychosocial activities should be done, such as a community “fun
day” for them to dispel somehow their worries and distress. Child
protection teams can be formed.
With Congress reconvened anew, it
is not Charter change, but a law protecting the internally displaced
that should be reflected on and passed by lawmakers.
Restoring community peace is now
the agenda of development workers undertaking different advocacy
efforts, education campaigns, and inter-agency dialogues and forums
in all levels to make people internalize the value of peaceful
co-existence. Mindanao is a tri-people area of Christians, Muslims
and Lumads or ethnics.
With displacement in Min-danao,
human rights standards are consistently being violated in areas with
a long-running insurgency, where conflict is four decades old, the
longest continuously raging in any Muslim area in the world.
Heavy bombing has been
concentrated on the areas fringing Liguasan Marsh, the source of
freshwater fish of many inland communities in Cotabato. Evacuees are
saying they will literally stand their ground, come hail or
brimstone, however.
The Mindanaoans are asserting
their first right to the resources of their land. Mindanao has 60
percent of the oil and natural gas reserves of the country, which
can reportedly yield 8 billion barrels. In August 2003, the
Philippine Contracting Round (PCR) held by the Department of Energy
has identified the Reed Bank of the Sulu Sea and the Liguasan Marsh
of the Cotabato Basin as “oil sites.”
Mrs. Arroyo promised then US
President George W. Bush during his October 18, 2003 state visit
with 46 “oil and exploration contracts” in the South China Sea
and Mindanao.
Bush sent a team of American
investors led by US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, and
recommended these projects himself to companies linked to his
Arbusto Energy Corporation.
In fact, the Magdalo rebel group
has claimed that the 2003 offensive in Camp Buliok was aimed to
enable the government to implement the 25-year Liguasan Marsh
Development Framework Plan, and revive the Farm-In Agreement and
Joint Operating Agreement between Philippine National Oil
Co.-Exploration Corp. and Petronas Carigali.
The joint media coverage team who
went to Cotabato in end-June met evacuees who asserted that their
area is being bombed to force them to leave the oil reserves in
Liguasan Marsh to whoever the government now wishes to have as
partner.
And not to forget, Mindanao is
the US’ favorite laboratory for its war on terror.
A New York Times articles
stipulated that the deployment to the Philippines, especially in
Min-danao, was probably the largest deployment of US Special Forces
in combat zone since Afghanistan, where Special Forces were also at
the forefront.
In 2002, then US Ambassador
Francis Ricciardone admitted that there were 17 to 24 overt or
covert military exercises conducted every year, done inside military
camps in Mindanao.
The Philippine government is the
biggest recipient of US military aid in the Asia Pacific, equivalent
to about 85 percent of the total US assistance allocated for the
region, or an amount that can reach $54 million every year, usually
directed to US soldiers’ exercises in Mindanao.
However, Lt. SG Nancy Gadian has
squealed that corrupt Filipino officers have pocketed a significant
percentage of funds for joint RP-US military exercises.
Undoubtedly, all these things
unfolding in Mindanao’s warfront will figure in the coming talks
between Mrs. Arroyo and the man she had long been tracking, US
President Barack Obama.
ngamolo@manilatimes.net/ngamolo@gmail.com
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