Posted on Thursday, August 29, 2002

Mindanao’s ethnic mix baffles dev’t planners

By Dave L. Llorito, Research Head

Conclusion

(The first part of the special report discussed how a dearth in education and health services, and a rising cadre of young, angry men hamper development efforts in Mindanao. The Mindanao Business Conference opened yesterday in Surigao City, showcasing the island-economy’s potentials. But even as residents of southern Philippines tout their strengths, socio-economic indicators also raise concerns about a growing underclass that provides fresh recruits for a long-running separatist insurgent movement.)

Tourists and big business executives see the wide, cement highways, the steel bridges, and a host of swanky infrastructure. But, like Mindanao’s complicated social tapestry, the new impressive roads divert attention from the tinderbox of a huge, seething underclass.

While government officials insist the conflict in Mindanao is not religious in character, statistics link poverty and inequality to ethnicity and cultural differences.

Data show serious inadequacies in Mindanao infrastructure.

Table 12 shows two types of indicators: road density or length (in kilometers) per hectare of land, and pavement ratio or percentage of roads concreted and/or asphalted. On average, the road densities for all Mindanao provinces (0.62) are as high as the national average. However, road densities in the provinces of Basilan, Zamboanga del Sur, Zamboanga del Norte, Misamis Oriental, Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, and all the ARRM provinces of Lanao del Sur, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi are below the national average.

Road densities are also a limited indicator, since these only convey quantity and not quality. A significant portion of these roads could just be gravel or earth that are useless during the rainy season.

The pavement ratio, a more important indicator, shows that only 15 percent of Mindanao roads are paved as compared to the national figure of 21 percent. Provinces that have the lowest pavement ratios are Basilan (Western Mindanao); Bukidnon (Northern Mindanao); Compostela Valley, Davao del Norte, Sarangani, and South Cotabato (Southern Mindanao); Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat (Central Mindanao); Lanao del Sur and Tawi-Tawi (ARMM); and Agusan del Norte and Surigao del Sur (Caraga).

Change in planning approaches

Besides effective delivery of social services, the government needs to improve development planning in Mindanao.  Economic managers normally treat Mindanao as if it is like any other place in the country. But experts who have carefully studied Mindanao politics and economy, believe that specific concerns should come to play in designing interventions in Mindanao.

One unique characteristics of Mindanao is its demographic profile.

It is the only place in the country that has mixed population categorized into three: Lumads, Moro, and settlers who are mostly Christian, thus the use of the term tripeoples. The Lumads comprise five percent, Moro 20 percent, and the settlers 75 percent.

The five-percent share of the Lumad population sounds unimpressive, but Mindanao is host to 61 percent of all indigenous peoples of the country. Since the country gained independence from foreign colonizers, development patterns have always been polarized in favor of the settlers.

Poverty and inequality are glaringly manifested in ethnicity and cultural differences, with the settlers at the top and the Moro and Lumad groups at the base of the totem pole of wealth, incomes, and opportunities.

 Since the Moro rebellion broke out in the  ’70s, several Mindanao provinces such as the two Lanaos, Maguindanao, Basilan, and Sultan Kudarat have never known sustained peace. Areas with significant Lumad population have also been throbbing with social instability, as they became the rich source of recruits for communist insurgency. There are intelligence reports that two-thirds of New People’s Army (NPA) combatants are from indigenous peoples.  In effect, social instability in Mindanao has gained ethnicity dimensions.

This demographic information suggests business-as-usual, sector-based development approaches that ignore these peculiarities would not work effectively. What is needed is a change in planning framework, one that takes into considerations the formation and strengthening of social capital in Mindanao.

Social capital

What is social capital? Social capital refers to social relations between and among people and the structures fostering and nurturing it, resulting in social cohesion. Besides social relations, social capital also includes norms and values that bond communities together, as well as the bridges between communal groups or civil society and the state. Socially cohesive societies are characterized by an atmosphere of trust, cooperation and reciprocity that ensures social stability and growth. Experts stress that progressive countries are those that have high social capital complementing other forms of capital — financial, human resources, natural resource base, and technology, among others.

The long years of recurring armed hostilities have severely depleted social capital in Mindanao. Hence, all forms of sectoral planning and budgeting without addressing social capital depletion would ultimately come to naught.

Government interventions, therefore, should be anchored on the development of social capital. The package should include extensive reconstruction activities, programs and projects that strengthen community institutions and coping mechanisms and promote interfaith and inter-ethnic understanding. National administrations could also focus on capability-building initiatives among local government units to ensure effective governance.

Using social capital as a framework would require government and other stakeholders to change their ways of seeing and doing things. Government intervention used to focus its energies on relief and rehabilitation after the smoke of battle clears. Now, it has to reinforce relief and rehabilitation activities with peace and development initiatives at the community level.

There is a tendency for government to focus interventions on economic programs and projects. The better way of doing it should be through a comprehensive package including economic, socio-cultural, and political components. Institutional reforms should go beyond capacity building toward a combination of programs, policy modification, and innovative public-private/civil society partnership schemes.

There is also a tendency to limit intervention on high intensity conflict areas. The government should widen the scope of its interventions Mindanao-wide because the problems are not isolated but island-wide.

First part