Economics key to peace in Mindanao

I was browsing the World Wide Web last weekend looking for good news.This was how I came about a website called GoodThings.com. Guess what I found there that is somewhat surprising – an item about peace in Mindanao. Here is that item that describes how a Datu has imposed peace and order and is keeping it with the help of foreign and local investors.

"In the southern Philippines, nowhere is the conflict between the nation’s separatist Islamic minority and its Catholic majority more intense than on the island of Mindanao. But the model for a lasting peace may lie in the eradication of poverty and in a banana plantation in the town of Datu Paglas called La Frutera.

"The plantation opened in 1997 and is now selling bananas throughout the world with distribution through the Chiquita brand. La Frutera has created jobs for some 2,000 people, many of them former Muslim rebels who had taken up arms against the Filipino government. Says one of the former rebels now employed on the plantation, when you can feed yourself and your children can go to school, the motivation to wage violent insurgency diminishes. Perhaps ironically, the man who started La Frutera learned about drip-irrigation farming from his time on a kibbutz in Israel."

La Frutera? The name sounded familiar. Now I remember. While I was having a haircut at our community barbershop, Toots Abiva, a neighbor, came around and reminded me about some materials he sent me some weeks ago about how the peace is being won somewhere in Mindanao through economics. The company involved is La Frutera.

At the helm of the company is another fellow resident of White Plains, Pedro R. Changco Jr., who used to work for the companies of Ambassador Al Yuchengco. Coincidence. He even has the same name of my late father, minus the middle initial "R" and the "g" in the surname. We are not related.

Pete Changco has a way of crossing my consciousness. The last time he did was on board a cruise ship to Alaska. I thought my wife and I saw someone familiar and it was Pete and his wife. So there we were, two couples from the same subdivision with almost the same surnames except for the "g".

Anyway, Pete is president of La Frutera and from what I have read about its activities in Mindanao, it seems to be doing the impossible. It has linked up with a local datu, Ibrahim Paglas, and is winning the peace by making the land productive and providing markets for the produce. It is the datu’s job to ensure the peace and La Frutera takes care of the investments and the technical assistance needed to make things a success.

Paglas town, according to Renny Subido, was known in the past as no man’s land. Renny, a business leader from General Santos, says "it is now moving a lot of products to other areas in Mindanao and exporting as well." He told me early this week that the renewed conflict has so far not affected agri-business operations and they are continuously producing for exports for countries in Asia and the Middle East.

This rare and surprising good news story from Mindanao has apparently caught the attention of the World Bank and was written up at The Wall Street Journal. Iranian, Malaysian, Hong Kong and Philippine flags wave outside the datu’s office. According to The Wall Street Journal, La Frutera has succeeded in part because the datu has cracked down on violence and crime, clearing the way for construction of good roads and an irrigation system.

Mindanao bananas, the Journal noted, grow large and are in demand in major Asian and Middle Eastern markets. The Journal has a curious quote from the datu: "We can never improve things here through the barrel of a gun." Indeed, the Journal interviewed former MILF fighters who expressed no desire to return to fighting. One of them who was identified as a Commander Spider while in the MILF, now oversees 45 men in La Frutera’s fields.

Rolly Dy, agri-business specialist of the University of Asia and the Pacific who happens to be from Mindanao, commented that "for the first time in their lives, thousands of our Muslim brothers and sisters are getting paid weekly. It is a success because of an enlightened Muslim leader by the name of Toto Paglas. Majority of the workers are connected with MILF but they don’t want war. This battle of hearts and mind must move fast. The radicals are converting the young Muslims in many places."

Surprising still is the presence of Israeli agricultural experts helping Pinoy Muslims in La Frutera’s plantations. One of the Israelis fought Muslim militants in Lebanon while in military service. This Israeli expert and six others "work hand in hand with former MILF guerillas who tend the fields, oversee fumigation and provide security," the Journal reported.

According to the Journal, no less than Hashim Salamat approved the fielding of the Israelis after ascertaining that they were working well with the locals. Of La Frutera’s 2,000 man workforce, 90 percent had been members of the MILF or sympathizers. In 2001, La Frutera generated net income of $3.6 million on revenue of $12.6 million.

The Journal also reports that La Frutera’s business is filtering through the rest of Mindanao’s small economy. The datu has set up trucking, security and gas station businesses to serve the plantation, generating $10 million in sales. Jobs have opened up for local residents and the town’s new bank offers loans to other aspiring entrepreneurs. This was also confirmed to me by Subido, who acknowledged La Frutera’s contribution to the growth of local economies.

Well, all these gain significance in the light of America’s growing interest in the security situation in Mindanao. America spent billions of dollars in the Iraq war. If America sincerely wants to help stop the growth of terrorism in Mindanao, a mini-Marshall Plan should work wonders, as the La Frutera experience has shown. It may be more productive for America to send experts in countryside economic development to Mindanao rather than basing soldiers there as seems to be their reported inclination.

Extremism, terrorism and insurgency have basic economic roots. Turning guns into plowshares apparently works. Of course, a political deal must be reached with the local chieftains so that peace and order can be assured. Investors won’t come in without strong assurances of security. That’s the lesson of La Frutera. Let the AFP quickly clean out the troublemakers and thereafter establish links with local leaders so that the economic transformation can begin.

Responding to my query by text message all the way from Egypt, Agriculture Secretary Cito Lorenzo said La Frutera is still working well. Cito added that the concept on which it is based, sustainable economic development, is the lasting solution to the peace problem in Muslim Mindanao. He said he has other examples but that will have to wait his return to Manila.

The good news is, peace is possible. We just have to unleash the economic weapon. No smart bomb can win a hungry and impoverished people over to the cause of peace. Maybe Cito Lorenzo, who knows the territory well, should head the next peace talks, not Angie Reyes or former General Ed Ermita. Economics is key to peace in Mindanao. The solution is in Cito’s hands with the help of Mar Roxas and the other economic managers. They just have to get their act together. Not a simple thing, I must concede.

Casting the first stone

Dr. Ernie E sends this timely one for today about casting the first stone.

Waxing eloquent on the sins of the flesh, the dynamic young preacher raised himself to full height, leaned over the pulpit and boomed, "Brothers and sisters, if there are any among you who have committed adultery, may your tongue cleave to the woof of your mouf."

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]