Surviving in the Mindanao “island village”

I couldn’t help but be depressed listening to stories of conflict that continue to afflict our people.  The images and sounds are chilling.

Sometimes I shut my senses out in order to avoid the hassle. But, normally that isn’t possible.

Maybe its the same surge of terror that pushed me to post this piece even if I had been plagued with a mysterious strain of “blog silence”. Mute, but not muted.

Inihanay sa:Agriculture, Bukidnon, Jobs in Mindanao, Malaybalay City, Mindanao, Mindanao's communities, Peace Process, Philippines, Reflections, Reporting Mindanao

Exodus day

I fully anticipate this homecoming. But as in any exodus, the past two days and the next two days would be busiest.

I have to do packing, unpacking, throwing, storing and all other things any transient could go through.

The biggest part is adjusting, or in this case, readjusting to another work set up and environment.  I look forward to major changes on many aspects.

Moving from Bukidnon to Davao and back looks easy with the five hour trip in an air-conditioned bus. But its not just the travel. It’s the whole idea of moving out-moving in.

I really hope it will go smoothly.  I wish.

Inihanay sa:Bukidnon, Davao, Malaybalay City, Mindanao, Reflections, Travel and Transportation

Mindanao Week of Peace starts today

For the ninth time this year, the Bishops-Ulama Conference has held on to the ground by leading the celebrations for the Mindanao Week of Peace (MWOP).

The BUC adopted Zamboanga City’s Peace Week and made it Mindanao-wide in 1999.

For almost a decade, the peace weeks have been opportunities for “peace weavers” to reflect on the need for peace in Mindanao, every stakeholder’s role and what has been done to attain lasting peace.

Inihanay sa:Business, Education, Environment, Governance, Human Rights, Investments in Mindanao, Local Governance, Lumads and Mindanao, Mindanao, Mindanao's communities, Peace Process, Philippines, Reflections, Religious

Hard Habit to Break

Eleven days have passed. It seems like months to me. For so long, I couldn’t create a post and tend to my cyber fields. I barely had time to blog, not even a minute just to link an article to this platform.

I discovered that I took my blogging time to the edge for the past days. I placed it at the last of my priorities when faced with challenging schedules and tasks.

I spent most of the last 11 days, in one hand, wrapping up my work as a Davao-based reporter. Preparing program reports side by side with the daily grind of news reportage.

On the other hand, I have to break the waters for my return to Bukidnon, a thing that I have to do, but for a while had been the epitome of postponement.

Inihanay sa:Monologues, Reflections

(Trying) to understand Mindanao

(A Personal Essay)

It’s still a world of instant coffee.

A friend from academia dropped a message in my inbox to ask for an online chat via Yahoo Messenger or Google Chat. I was surprised since the last contact we made was two years ago in a UP e-group.

He said as a journalist I could give him a quick explanation about Mindanao, its indigenous peoples, the issue of ancestral domain, the Mindanao conflict, why some IPs oppose mining, and also the peace process. He was trying to prepare a primer on Mindanao.

I knew it was an overview paper. It was an ambitious overview paper. It is doable I’m sure. I find preparing a primer on Mindanao, however, out of synch and possibly a waste of time. Such primer could be for anyone rushing. But I think one shouldn’t rush any attempt to understand Mindanao.

Inihanay sa:Blogging and Bukidnon, Blogging and Mindanao, Education, Freedom, Mindanao, Peace Process, Philippines, Reflections

Son of the hills of Tralala

Many things kept me busy in the past few days. Evidently, I have not updated this blog regularly. That doesn’t mean, however, that I have a drought of stories or issues and concerns to blog about. I assure you there are hundreds of stories worth writing for news and for tell-tale sake.

After our MindaNews team ran the Grassroots Documentation and Reporting trainers’ training last week, I took a leave to go home to Bukidnon. Three days later I have to be back to Davao to work on the event’s reports.

The shift from daily reportage to preparing the training and back is bumpy. While I key in this post to the internet, I still bear the effects of stress what with asthma attacks and triggered coughing. But I will never complain about playing two roles or more.

In fact, I believe, that is what most of us are doing these days. We multi-task. We become slashers.

Inihanay sa:Bukidnon, Davao, Education, Malaybalay City, Mindanao, Mindanao's communities, People Power, Philippines, Reflections

Mrs. Arroyo goes to Tamayong

How I wish my news organization owned a chopper. Better yet, I wish teleporting is real.

The thing is, I can only dream about it while transfixed to a presidential chase today. The object of our chase probably didnot even know that we exist, more so that we were looking for her.

Right in the middle of a taxi ride from SM City to Davao’s airport, I caught myself mouthing to my colleagues: “Why am I pursuing this coverage?”

Inihanay sa:Davao, Governance, Mindanao, Mindanao Media, Monologues, News, Philippines, Politics, Reflections, Updates

Thinking ‘out of the box’ in Mindanao

Thinking out of the box should be easier in Mindanao.

Here, you will be forced to choose to be open-minded, to be culturally-sensitive, and to keep in mind a collective viewpoint rather than just a small village “I” or “mine” outlook.

Everyday will be an exposure to various learning experiences including in unlikely places.

Inihanay sa:ARMM, Agriculture, BIMP - EAGA, Bukidnon, Davao, Economy, Environment, Every Day Mindanao, Monologues, People Power, Philippines, Politics, Reflections

Violins, not violence

The phrase isn’t original. But that’s what I remembered when I was in front of a scene in GSIS Heights Subdivision here in Davao City by noon time today.

I saw two men in the new sidewalk of Virgo Street while I was waiting for my turn for a pedal cab from the office to MacArthur Highway. They were playing pop music on a violin and a guitar.

I love the violin and it is the instrument I’d like to master and play everyday. To experience a performance out in the street was, of course,  a bonus.

Inihanay sa:Davao, Every Day Mindanao, Mindanao, Monologues, Music and Mindanao, Peace Process, Reflections

What about the civilians, General Esperon sir?

I couldn’t help but react right away upon reading reports from the national media about the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ reported “readiness” to possible spillover of violence in its punitive operations in Basilan.

GMANews.tv reported that Philippine military chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr mouthed that government security forces have been pre-positioned to avert any possible spillover of violence once the “punitive actions” against selected members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) start in Basilan.

OK, I must stress I’m not a true-blue peace advocate. I do not know every facet of this situation considering the many things hidden from the public, including the media.

I’m just a Davao-based reporter who happens to publish this blog far from Basilan. I even have difficulty finding “Tipotipo” on the map.

But it speaks only of common sense to figure out that in any war, it is the civilians, not the military, who are at the receiving end of greater violence and hardships.

Inihanay sa:Davao, Governance, Mindanao, News, Peace Process, Reflections, Security

Priest as lead negotiator?

Why not? He is qualified and also deeply-rooted, according to the comments of those who support his appointment.

While there are mixed reactions to the appointment of Fr. Eliseo Mercado, OMI, as the government panel’s chief negotiator with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, there is no grand rule blocking his acceptance. Even the MILF says they have high regard and respect to the priest when they considered his appointment as a setback.

There has been mixed reactions before and there are more to it in this story where most of those who said their pieces stress he might be best as mediator, not as negotiator.

Right now if I am not mistaken, the mediator, or at least the formal one as there are other informal mediators like the third party monitors, is the Government of Malaysia.

Anyway, in my opinion, too, a negotiator plays not only a functional role but also a symbolic one. The Catholic community might be happy to see a priest in the realm but they might be turned off by the idea that a priest taking a partisan role could be risky especially in a peace process marred before with religious colors.

I may not have the wisdom yet or the objectivity required in looking at this situation, but maybe a priest could be more acceptable in negotiating with the New People’s Army, not with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

The question now rolls on: if not him, then who?

Inihanay sa:ARMM, Bukidnon, Davao, Economy, Education, Human Rights, Justice, Malaybalay City, Mindanao, Peace Process, People Power, Philippines, Reflections, Safety, Security, Updates

Suspect in German’s abduction nabbed

KIDAPAWAN CITY (MindaNews/6 June) — One of the suspects in the
abduction of German national Thomas Wallraf and three Filipinos last
week was arrested Tuesday by joint forces of Pikit police, Cotabato
Rapid Response Group (CRRG), and intelligence operatives of the North
Cotabato provincial police force.

Sr. Insp. Elias Dandan, Pikit police chief, identified the arrested
suspect as Edward Cocal. He was sighted by police assets while eating
at the Hill Park Restaurant in Barangay Poblacion in Midsayap North
Cotabato around 12 o’ clock pm.

Inihanay sa:Crime, Davao, Governance, Human Rights, Mindanao, Reflections, Safety, Security