Reporting on Mindanao’s war front

DEVELOPMENT DIALOGUE
By Nora O. Gamolo



Journalists who joined the first ever combined coverage team of Manila and Mindanao-based writers (including this writer) find ominous the succession of bombings in different parts of Mindanao after they concluded their almost aborted visit to evacuation centers in Cotabato.

Just two months ago, the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Center noted that the Philippines had the largest number of “conflict-induced” newly internally displaced people in 2008. Some 600,000 people fled the fighting between the Philippine military and rebel groups in Mindanao. They accounted for 13 percent of the 4.6 million newly internally displaced people around the world in 2008. Mindanao’s latest round of bombings cements its unfortunate tag as the violence capital of the country.

On July 5, the Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Cotabato City was bombed at about 8:40 a.m., killing five and wounding 52 civilians. Next day, bombs were also set off in Jolo and Iligan City. All bombed areas are part of the disputed Bangsamoro Homeland. One wonders who the bombers were and what motivated them to set off those bombs. Soldiers claim it was the handiwork of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels. Critics suspect men loyal to President Gloria Arroyo, accused of planning to keep her post at all costs. Others say the US soldiers now in several points in Mindanao may have a hand in this outrage.

In Mindanao, every act of violence can set off a chain reaction of almost unmanageable proportions, heightening long-raging conflicts in this beautiful but bloodied land. Only those who gain from people’s confusion and predictably emotional reactions can possibly do such dastardly acts. It is easy to identify the losers in the continuing drama in the Bangsamoro Homeland. These are civilians who die or get bereaved in the violence, or who get dispossessed of their land and property as they move out of the battlegrounds, or from harm’s way. Mindanao’s losers count the women, children, elderly, and economically marginalized who do not have the resources to pit against the agents of violence.

Many are now housed in evacuation centers made from partitioned classrooms, barangay halls or public places. Many such structures are now decrepit due to multiple uses and users. Identifying the gainers in the violent cycles in Mindanao is probably the main challenge of journalists who stake their lives to cover Mindanao’s war fronts, and the stakeholders who dream of a peace-filled, developed, and providential Mindanao. Mindanao beckons all who are willing to accept these challenges. Yet, these are only for the courageous, since one could lose not just his shirt, but dear life as well, in the process.

With the bombings, the situation has become tensely fluid, with all stakeholders demanding an impartial investigation, and for all concerned parties to observe sobriety and strengthen their efforts in promoting inter-peoples’ unity and peace-building. Said Abdulbasit Benito, head of the Cotabato City-based Bangsamoro Center for Just Peace in the Philippines (BCJP), “Aggrieved families should calm down and wait for the result of the investigation to avoid panic and possible religious conflict.”

While drowning out long-standing problems from the media and the public’s attention, the bombings are also aggravating them. They mask the harsh realities of all forms of violence, including evacuations that affect more than 693,000 civilians displaced from August 2008 to date. Before the new bombings, Mindanao witnessed a comedy of errors.

On June 30, soldiers stopped the joint media coverage team who trooped to the evacuation centers last week. The blocking soldiers from the Philippine Army’s 6th Infantry Division said they were ordered by superiors not to let the journalists pass through without clearance from their superiors.

The journalists’ visit was publicly announced and known beforehand to the military. They were even scheduled to have a dialogue with military officers in the afternoon of the same day. Obviously flabbergasted, the media were told that soldiers first had to clear the path they were taking to Datu Piang and Mamasapano towns. An incendiary explosive device exploded a day earlier in an adjoining town, and the military supposedly didn’t want any untoward incident involving the media.

Now, that was uncustomarily sweet. Mindanao journalists have always been apprehensive of soldiers, police and the paramilitia units they have set up, including the private armies of politicians. These forces are accused of complicity in several media killings, from martial law years to the present. June 30 was different. More than 60 journalists and civil society guides spent a precious hour and a half arguing their right to pass through in the name of media freedom, and the outnumbered soldiers were obviously discomfited by this garrulous group.

Within that time, a convoy of provisions from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) came by and in minutes, allowed to pass through. The journalists were left behind in the checkpoint still awaiting their clearance, and wondering why the soldiers were less disposed to “secure” the ICRC personnel.

ngamolo@manilatimes.net ngamolo@gmail.com