Thanks to a micro community-based infrastructure project in the far-flung Barangay Christian Village, many Visayan and Maranaw clans, which had engaged in decades-old bloody family feuds, or rido, have agreed to bury their hatchets and work cohesively for peace and sustainable development.
The different groups began cooperating when the World Bank, Japan Bank for International Cooperation and Malacañang, through the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Social Fund Project (ASFP), built a two-classroom school building for children of impoverished Muslim and Christian peasants.
Operating under the executive department of the autonomous regional government, the ASFP has at present dozens of community-based small infrastructure projects in many parts of the ARMM, including island-towns in Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.
Besides building the two-classroom schoolhouse with the help of Muslim and Christian settlers, the ASFP also organized the residents into a group capable of planning and overseeing the small-scale livelihood and infrastructure projects in their village.
"It was then that we realized that it is important to unite, set aside our parochial interests and work as one people for peace and development to set in," said 38-year-old Maranaw peasant Subair Boransing.
Although a predominantly Visayan area, dozens of Christian and Muslim families voluntarily helped construct the foreign-funded schoolhouse.
Some 116 Maranaw and Ilonggo children, who used to occupy the small barangay hall, now hold classes, on rotation basis, in the school building.
The Christian Village is not far away from the scene of fierce clashes between Muslim secessionist rebels and government forces in the 1970s and in 2000.
"We are grateful of this gift from the ASFP. This is a big help to our barangay," said Matilda Ayson, a mother of four.
For local leaders, it was the zeal of the Maranaw and Visayan residents that lured more foreign development packages to their village.
"Before, the school children in Christian Village had been using the crowded barangay hall as their classroom. Now, they are provided with an edifice conducive to learning with open spaces for outdoor exercises," an elated Wao Mayor Elbino Balicao said.
According Balicao, Muslim and Christian settlers in this agricultural town want to show the people in Luzon and the Visayas that while there are security problems in Mindanao, the island’s folk, regardless of their faith and tribal identities, desire lasting peace and sustainable development.
Accountant-lawyer Arnel Datukon, ASFP manager, said they have also organized, with the help of the office of ARMM Gov. Zaldy Ampatuan and his social welfare secretary, the residents of Christian Village into a functioning planning board which formulates community projects needed to boost the local economy.
"Wao, in general, is fast becoming a showcase of international cooperation in furthering the Mindanao peace process, which is centered on the socio-economic empowerment of local sectors," Datukon said.