Presidentiables dared: Make Mindanao your national agenda

DAVAO CITY – Make Mindanao your national agenda.

This was the challenge to Presidential aspirants in the 2010 elections if they want to get the nod and possible support and endorsement of peace advocates currently organizing several activities in the Mindanao Week of Peace.

Tom Villarin, executive director of the German-funded SIAD Initiatives in Mindanao Convergence for Asset Reform and Regional Development (SIMCARRD), said bringing the issue of Mindanao to the national audience was the main objective of this year’s commemoration of the week of peace.

The annual Mindanao Week of Peace is observed on the last Thursday of November to the first Wednesday of December.

“It’s just unfortunate that the violence in Maguindanao preceded the celebration of the Mindanao Week of Peace. In the eyes of the national populace, the celebration is gloomy,” he said. He spoke during the regular MOnday (November 30) press conference of the Davao Press Club at the SM City Mall here.

The Maguindanao massacre notwithstanding, Villarin said “we want to make Mindanao the national priority” of the national administration as they also wanted to ensure that the next administration would adapt it.

Hazel Pergis-Lozada of the Alternate Forum of Research in Mindanao (Afrim), a private research group based here, said that that the initial round of forum with Presidential aspirants showed that “they have a poor understanding of the problem in Mindanao”.

She said that an Afrim research last year insisted anew that the Mindanao conflict “is not religious in nature but about unequal share of resources and land-based”.

“The land issue is the problem here especially with the entry and presence of corporations. These are the major sources of conflict in Mindanao,’ Lozada said.

The Germany-based Bread for the World has entered into a partnership with the Davao City division of the Department of Education and the Davao City National High School in organizing peace forums and sharing of experiences on conflict. It has also signed partnership agreement with the nongovernment organizations like Simcarrd, the Afrim and FarmCoop.

Villarin said that sharing of experiences, which the groups called “Conversation of Peace”, were being conducted in many areas in Mindanao and the Visayas “where communities can tell their stories and learnings about dealing and surviving the conflict are being shared”.

He said that this activity were held or scheduled to be conducted in Agusan del Sur, Davao del Norte, Palawan, and Bacolod in Negros.

“The Mindanao Week of Peace is a national commemoration, and this is our small contribution,” he said.