BMFI technically began its peacebuilding work in Surigao del Sur last quarter of 2010. Kuya Kaloy himself together with other BMFI elders primarily did the preliminary visits, reconnecting with some old friends, meeting local leaders, facilitating consultations, and contact building with various local groups. After which was the unfolding of partnership engagements in the municipalities of Cagwait and Lianga.
The personal invitations of Hon. Mayor Bonifacio Ondona of Cagwait also enhanced BMFI to go and visit the area. Presently, he chairs the alliance of now, seven municipalities comprising of Marihatag, Cagwait, San Agustin, Lianga, Tago, Bayabas, and San Miguel (or MaCaSaLTaBayaMi), which was historically conceptualized for the establishment of a provincial agri-industrial center in Cagwait with the Regional Development Council (RDC) of Region 11.
Essentially, it was the entire Balay Mindanaw Group (BMG) comprising of RCED, KPMFI and BBFI that went through the process of listening to the LGUs, peoples’ organizations, military, and church including the non state actors operating in the area. It couldn’t be denied that these areas have for a long time been affected by armed conflicts between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the New Peoples Army (NPA). Recognizing the said context, BMFI even sent a personal letter expressing its intention to explore the possibility of engaging the peoples, communities, institutions and the broad stakeholders of Surigao del Sur in a meaningful and principled partnership towards equity, development and peace; and that it currently undertakes a process of broad and on-the-ground consultations among the various stakeholders to help it understand the situation and context, and to determine whether its presence could bring added positive value to the past and present efforts in the area.
In Cagwait, two barangays namely Tawagan and Mat-e signified their interest. Barangays St. Christine and Diatagon in Lianga also signified interest. This is hoped to expand in the whole of the alliance.
For the team Cagwait-Lianga (CaLia), BMFI’s core principles of transparency, inclusivity, and non-partisanship in the overall implementation of the peacebuilding program largely facilitated our smooth integration in the communities. The process Reflecting on Peace Practice (RPP) starting from the situational or context analysis, planning, implementing, and monitoring and evaluation has been used as the overarching framework guiding the overall implementation.
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The Province in Brief
Surigao del Sur is one of the provinces of Caraga (Region 13). It has a land area of 4, 552.16 square kilometers which occupies 24% of the region. It is rich with different mineral, timber, water and coastal resources.
On the other hand, despite the rich resources that abound the province, it has been consistently identified as one of the poorest provinces in the Philippines and in Mindanao. The municipalities of Lianga and Cagwait were the big logging concession sites in the past. Nested in the province are various resource conflicts, sites of struggle insofar as mining and logging, and continuing disenfranchisement of the Indigenous Peoples.
The province has three major alliances namely MaCaSaLTaBayaMi, CarCanMadCarLanCorTan – Lanuza Bay Development Alliance (LBDA), and BIBAHILITA-PAIC.
The MaCaSaLTaBayaMi Alliance
As cited above, MaCaSaLTaBayaMi is one of the strong LGU alliances in the Province of Surigao del Sur. Its beginning could be traced as early as 1988 when local officials sought assistance from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) for the establishment of a provincial agri-industrial center in Cagwait because of its strategic location in the province.
MaCaSaLTaBayaMi occupies a total land area of 204, 417 hectares, with San Miguel having the largest land area of 55,000 hectares or twenty-seven percent (27%) of the total and Bayabas, having the smallest with 11,874 hectares or six percent (6%) of the total. Most of the member municipalities belong to the fourth class municipalities.
MaCaSaLTaBayaMi has a lot of potential for development as an agri-economic and tourism zone in the province. And it is blessed with bountiful resources, such as, timber, minerals, watersheds, springs, falls, and pristine coastline. Forested lands comprised more than half of the total land area (55%) followed by agricultural land (39%).
Logging has been the main source of employment for most of the municipalities since 1900s to 1990s. Big logging corporations also operated in the past like Aras-asan Timber Company in Cagwait and Lianga Bay Logging Company in Lianga. Based on the PPDO data, in the year 1998-2008, around 71,000 Indigenous Peoples composed of Manobo, Mandaya, Kamayo, and Mamanwa tribes still reside in the hinterlands.
Because of the armed conflicts existing since early 80’s up to present, these municipalities were not able to harness its full potentials to be an economic and tourism zone.
One of the biggest camps of the CPP-NPA in the country is located in the Andap Valley, which is inside the cluster. The people of Lianga, Marihatag and San Agustin usually used the old logging road going Diatagon to reach the far flung sitios in Andap Valley. According to reports, there were series of military operations that have already been conducted in the past years however armed rebellion still exists. At the height of armed conflict in the 80s and 90s, several barangays have been evacuated and declared “no man’s land.” This resulted in the loss of lives and livelihood and the displacement of communities. Thousands of internally displaced persons and families and economic activities in the community, especially in the hinterlands where indigenous people are situated were affected.
Initial gains
BMFI’s first major activity conducted was a reflection session and discussion on the design of conflict analysis and strategic planning with the MaCaSaLTaBayaMi members. This was followed by the conduct of peace and development sessions with the COPD team of 32nd IB at SUDECOR with more than 100 soldiers.
New opportunities have reinforced and boosted BMFI’s peace engagement with the Local Government of Cagwait. It is through the support of a new partner that is the International Budget Partnerships (IBP). The partnership focuses on budget tracking together with the Municipality of Cagwait, and two of its barangays namely Tawagan and Mat-e.
BMFI thru this project intends to help and enhance local budget work by capacitating the local government units and the constituent citizens on the local budget process in relation to the national policies on full disclosure and procurement. This is timely because the local government units are developing their present plans based on the peace and development plans of the barangays.
The engagement of Balay Mindanaw in Lianga and Cagwait has become clearer as it continued. The meeting with Mayor Boni Ondona last April 29, 2011was a defining moment – bringing about promising potentials, providing best options on how BMFI would pursue its community based work in Surigao del Sur.
Mayor Boni as the chairperson of the MACASALTABAYAMI alliance has helped clarified the role of Balay Mindanaw as a service provider. Together with the alliance, BMFI has submitted a concept note to COSERAM for the condut of organizational diagnosis and conflict analysis.
To be more visible in the area, BMFI will establish a sub-office and staff house at the poblacion of Cagwait. Local Peace Consultations (LPCs) were also conducted in four barangays namely Tawagan and Mat-e in Cagwait; and St.Christine and Diatagon in Lianga. One of the significant outcomes cited was that for the first time, these barangays were able to formulate, review and validate through a participatory process their Barangay Development Plan using peacebuilding lens: the process using conflict sensitive lens was able to surface important conflicts, justice and developmental issues. The peace consultations have cited to produce three observable changes on more people, and on the level of personal and institutional changes:
- The community was able to understand more the role and programs of Balay Mindanaw. They expressed that most of the organizations from the outside provided them projects and other financial assistance. Balay Mindanaw will serve as a bridge for resource mobilization and provide technical assistance through the Barangay Peace and Development Plan and Community Organizing;
- The community was able to have a deeper analysis of their present situation and issues. They realized that in terms of prioritization, it is not just identifying of infrastructures but recognizing the importance of a comprehensive planning done in a participatory manner. Considering the limited budget, there should be “optimal use of resources”, they said; and
- This has also paved the way to the creation of a Technical Working Group (TWG). This will start the process of transfer of technology from us to the technical working group of the local government unit which is composed of personnel from the Mayor’s Office and the Municipal Planning and Development Office (MPDO).
When the Local Peace Consultation was held in Diatagon last October 2011, around 150 families from the Manobo Tribal Communities in the hinterlands evacuated for the reason that the military would put up a detachment in their community as well as conduct Community Organizing for Peace and Development (COPD). This was not the first time to happen in Diatagon. This also happened in years 2005, 2007, and 2009.
To this end, a local peace dialogue was organized to convey ideas and clarify issues coming from the different stakeholders. After two sessions, the groups involved were able to come up with a signed agreement. It was also the first time for a Batallion Commander to sign an agreement (win-win) with the community.
The team has conducted and attended municipal development council meetings, Barangay Development Council meetings, Sanguniang Bayan and Barangay Council Meetings, purok meetings, and Peoples Organization’s meetings. This is part of the contact and relationship building. The team believes that because of constant visits, meetings, and linkaging, a degree of trust and confidence among a number of stakeholders in the barangays, municipality, province, and region has been established.
In fact, BFMI is already a member of the strategic local development councils of the province and the two municipalities.
Operation Peace Course was conducted just recently with 33 participants coming from the Province, Municipal, and partner barangays. The activity has again produced more peace champions in the communities who will hopefully help facilitate peacebuilding and conflict transformation interventions in the area.
Challenges and What’s next for Surigao del Sur
The Reflecting on Peace Practice (RPP) tool is now being used in the conduct of team assessments and consciously looking at the connections of the community based work to the much bigger picture or the “PEACE WRIT LARGE”.
The team is being guided by two important theories of change, as follows: 1) “By providing spaces for learning, trainings, dialogues and participatory principled partnerships, key people and sectors in the community will become more proactive in building community of peacebuilders who will significantly help in the reduction of violence and strengthen understanding and tolerance among tri-peoples; and 2) “If only the constituent citizens were capacitated, they could create opportunities for quality participation, and access more resources for their security under favorable environment”. This, we believe would contribute to us constantly reminded to remain grounded as we pursue on achieving our goal, “transformed violent affected communities into Empowered Sustainable Peaceful and Resilient Communities. “
The implementation of the measures, strategy, and methodology of the Surigao team follows participatory and inclusive approaches. Balay Mindanaw is maximizing local capacities for peace in order to achieve the desired changes.
For now, we are engaging the Municipality of Cagwait and Lianga that are very open to partnerships. The partner Barangay Development Councils has also expressed their interest and commitment to journey with Balay Mindanaw Foundation, Inc. Several partners both from internal and external stakeholders have also expressed their interest to contribute to the effort of doing peacebuilding in the area.
What is always in our minds and hearts as SIADOs in the province of Surigao del Sur is that consciousness that not one strategy fits all. Surigao del Sur will be one different experience to nurture, to treasure, to remember in the organizational life of BMFI.