Maguindanao peasants call for continuation of peace talks

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines - At least 309,216 Muslim and Christian peasants now pioneering the propagation of oil palm and rubber trees in the province could lose their projects if hostilities erupt anew between Moro rebels and government forces, officials said Wednesday.

Representatives of different peasant communities on Wednesday appealed for the continuation of the now 18-year peace overture between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which was challenged by the January 25 deadly firefights between policemen and MILF rebels in Mamasapano in the second district of Maguindanao.

Their apprehensions were raised during a day-long provincial oil palm and rubber farming forum in Buluan town, one of the highlights of the seven-day Sagayan Festival, which will culminate on Friday.

The Sagayan Festival, which showcases the customs and traditions of ethnic Maguindanaons and how they struggle to co-exist with Christian settlers and the indigenous non-Islamic groups in the province, is a yearly event of the provincial government, which was started five years ago by Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu.

Salik Panalunsong, provincial agricultural officer for Maguindanao of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF) in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said the province is to become the "oil palm capital" of ARMM by 2017 if the oil palm propagation project of Mangudadatu is not hampered by armed conflicts.

“And by then Maguindanao will rank second to Basilan in terms of having a big area planted to rubber trees. This is the reason why farmers in the province are so scared of war, so scared of resumption of hostilities between the government and the MILF,” Panalunsong said.

Reports obtained from the office of Panalunsong and from the provincial government indicated that a total of 309,216 peasants already benefited from the rubber and oil palm seedling dispersal program of the governor in the past three years.

"If there is no conflict, more farmers will be able to plant rubber and oil palm seedlings in their lands," Panalunsong said.

The office of DAF-ARMM's secretary, Makmod Mending Jr., has been flooded with petitions by peasant communities in Maguindanao and other provinces in the region for the department to help prod the MILF and the national government not to let the Mamasapano incident derail the Mindanao peace process.

The ARMM also covers Lanao de Sur, the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, and the cities of Lamitan and Marawi, all known as common bastions of the MILF and the Moro National Liberation Front.

The DAF-ARMM has distributed more than P100 million worth of farm equipment, including hand tractors, rice hullers and mechanized corn shelling machines, seeds and fertilizers to Maguindanaon peasants in the past two years to complement the efforts of the provincial government to foster normalcy in barangays made impoverished by conflicts in decades past.

Mending said 90 percent of farmers in the province are ethnic Maguindanaons.

“All of them want the tranquility in the province to continue for their agricultural projects not to get disrupted,” Mending said.

Farmer Karim Saligumba, 45, said he had planted in recent months more than a hundred oil palm seedlings in his farm, which is near a government-recognized MILF enclave.

“If conflict erupts, the plants in my farm will surely be gone. We have no way but abandon our plants and livestock for our own safety. We have done this many times over since the 1970s,” Saligumba said in the Maguindanaon vernacular.

Saligumba said he lost two siblings, Angkay and Musib, in a cross-fire between soldiers and Moro rebels in Datu Piang, Maguindanao in 1974.

“War is very disastrous,” an emotional Saligumba said.

Participants to the oil palm and rubber forum, jointly organized by Mangudadatu, local traders and big blocs of Moro farmers, assured the provincial peace and order council to immediately report to their respective mayors any presence of suspected terrorists in their barangays.

Mangudadatu reminded the mayors present in the gathering to live by their oath to exhaust their authority, as provided for by the Local Government Code, to deny terrorist sanctuary in their municipalities.

Mangudadatu also talked lengthily about the need for Muslim, Christian and lumad farmers in the province to help re-orient, with the support of clerics, young religious extremists in their enclaves that are espousing hatred toward government.

“These extremists are so few. Many of us are moderate Muslims. We are bigger in number. We can address them via religious interventions. If they feel they cannot get public support, surely they will revert to the genuine Islamic practice of co-existing with people regardless of faith and tribal affiliations,” Mangudadatu told the participants to the forum.

Mending and Panalunsong both said while the January 25 incident in Mamasapano, which left 44 members of the police’s Special Action Force  and 18 MILF rebels dead, has not spilled over to other  towns, farmers are so worried of its implications to the Mindanao peace process.

Mending said the Sagayan Festival will help correct the notion that there is trouble in Maguindanao following the Mamasapano incident.

“The ARMM government and the provincial government of Maguindanao are doing everything to keep the fragile peace we have in the province,” Mending said.