Saturday, April 22, 2006

Joint RP-WB project keeps peace with MILF, NPA rebs

MAGUINDANAO (Mitch Confesor / 22 Apr) Even the most hardened fighters of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the New People’s Army (NPA) have become engineers of peace and development courtesy of a joint grassroots project of the Philippine government and the World Bank (WB).

MILF and NPA rebels are one in praising the $182.4-million Kapit-Bisig Laban Sa Kahirapan (KALAHI) Community Integrated Delivery of Social Services (CIDSS), a six-year project started in 2002 with the aim of covering 25 percent of the poorest municipalities in the poorest 42 out of 79 provinces, or more than 4,000 villages or barangays in 182 municipalities nationwide.

“The KALAHI-CIDDS is a community-driven development (CDD) project that aims to empower communities through their enhanced participation in community projects that reduce poverty,” said a 40-page WB compilation report called “Empowering the Poor.”

The MILF “has expressed official support for KALAHI,” the WB report said, citing the group’s welcome of projects in at least eight Muslim communities in Sultan Kudarat province and the presence of MILF supporters in one project site.

The WB report revealed that a P5.15-million road project which has benefited former armed bandits in one community in Lanao del Norte province had also helped turn communist rebels in a neighboring town into KALAHI-CIDDS volunteers.

It said people in this community in Sapad town, Lanao del Norte were no longer keen on buying guns, because with their newest road, they would rather invest in motorcycles for public utility, replacing their transport carts traditionally drawn by carabaos or water buffaloes.

The 40-page report said one village in Davao Oriental province which benefited with a P1.38-million potable water supply system had “hosted peace talks between the national government and Muslim secessionist rebels (who) officially support the KALAHI, and their fighters are volunteers in different villages.”

The village in Tarragona town, Davao Oriental “has played a major role in the peace process. We hosted peace talks between the government and the (MILF). The talks began before the KALAHI came and continued as the project rolled out,” said Editha Umbaligan, acting principal of the Lucatan Elementary School in Tarragona.

Umbaligan added: “With the guns turning silent and peace talks on the table, people have returned to their normal lives. In Lucatan we would rather turn our attention to the war against poverty.”

Among the KALAHI-CIDSS’ projects in Mindanao are:

– a P5,150,120 improvement of the main road in Brgy. Dansalan, Sapad, Lanao del Norte (59-percent KALAHI grant, 41 percent local);

– a P1,834,551 construction work involving 62 tribal houses and one communal hall in Brgy. Km. 31, Talaingod, Davao del Norte (51-percent KALAHI grant, 49 percent local);

– a P1,376,926 Level II water supply system in Brgy. Lucatan, Tarragona, Davao Oriental (48-percent KALAHI grant, 52 percent local);

– a P1,241,270 project involving the opening of a rural road in Brgy. Libi, Malapatan, Sarangani, where 1.5 kilometers were targeted but 2.4 kilometers were covered (32-percent KALAHI grant, 68 percent local); and

– a P712,973 corn mill in Brgy. Magwawa, Sto. Tomas, Davao del Norte (79-percent KALAHI grant, 21 percent local).

“Because of the new road (in Dansalan, Sapad), the gun culture is starting to fade,” the WB report said. “People are giving up their firearms and would rather invest in motorcycles.”

“There are no rebel groups here, but we have had a problem with gun violence. We have a tradition called rido, family feuding. Through rido, retaliation breeds retaliation. But with the new road, people are not so keen on buying guns; they would rather save up to buy motorcycles,” the Dansalan subproject committee chair, Salie Alando, wrote in an article entitled “Peace means walking the same road” published in the WB report.

Alando added: “Our social worker friends say the KALAHI is also promoting peace in our neighboring municipality, Sultan Naga Dimaporo. Communist rebels are holding peace talks with the government.
Many of the fighters became project volunteers when the KALAHI was introduced there. They found that the bottom-up process resembled their own work with the masses. In years past, people would take separate paths to market.
Today we literally, and symbolically, walk the same road.”

Another KALAHI-CIDSS road project, this time worth P1.24 million, has benefited native B’laans at a mountain village in Malapatan, Sarangani who were cut off from the rest of the municipality since their access trail had been “treacherous” and “dangerously narrow,” prompting parents not to take risks sending their children to school.

“At one point, it was only 14 inches wide. If you slipped off it, you would fall into a deep ravine. That part was so narrow that two people could not cross it – in fact, one person alone had to walk sideways at certain points.
Even in the wider sections, you would have to shout first to make sure no one was coming from the other end. Horses were known to have fallen off the trail to their deaths,” the Libi, Malapatan subproject committee chair, Pastor Clarito Palalisan, wrote in an article entitled “From a Dangerous Trail to a Road of Opportunity” published in the WB report.

Palalisan added: “We realized that the road was not a government project. It was our project. And the real project was not the road but our empowerment. ... it’s funny, but old habits die hard. Even though the new road is 6 meters wide, some people still walk through it single-file out of sheer habit.”

The joint Philippine-WB project was also responsible for the P1.83-million construction of 62 houses and a communal hall for indigenous Ata Manobo tribes in a highland village in Talaingod, Davao del Norte, replacing their fragile houses made of bark and banana leaves which they had erected consistent with their nomadic lifestyle.

“The KALAHI respected us datus and our culture. I am proud to say that we datus were very much involved in the project – we were the prime movers. And yet we did not oppose this new way of pulling in many people to help make decisions. We like this way of holding village assemblies because more ideas come out,” the WB report quoted Datu Ibus Badeos as saying of the project in Km. 31, Talaingod.

Other KALAHI-CIDSS projects in Luzon and the Visayas are:

– a P1,092,450 construction of a six-classroom high school in Brgy. Sta. Lucia, Dolores town, Quezon province (61-percent KALAHI grant, 39 percent local);

– a P387,910 flood control wall in Brgy. Kinabuhayan, Dolores, Quezon (63-percent KALAHI grant, 37 percent local);

– a P352,200 community meat processing center in Brgy. Tabi, Sulat town, Eastern Samar province (82-percent KALAHI grant, 18 percent local);

– a P346,146 public utility passenger boat in Brgy. Dungon, Concepcion town, Iloilo province (72-percent KALAHI grant, 28 percent local); and

– a P1,097,000 electrification project in Brgy. Olave, Enrique Villanueva town, Siquijor province (57-percent KALAHI grant, 43 percent local).

“In traditional politics in the Philippines, many politicians choose to give funds to villages that supported them during the elections. The KALAHI turns this system upside down. The villages themselves make the decisions,” said former mayor Earl Stanley Matas of Enrique Villanueva, Siquijor on the P1.10-million KALAHI electrification project in the village of Olave.

Every teacher in the P1.09-million school in a village in Dolores, Quezon “used to handle 70 students, (but) with the new school, the ratio has fallen to 40,” the WB report said. “The finished building was a sight to behold. Parents joked it was better than a private school.”

The report on the KALAHI-funded high school in Sta. Lucia, Dolores said the principal had revealed that grades were rising and the students had been winning academic competitions, as the barangay had also become the provincial champion in the math and science contests.
“A communist rebel couple has returned to the mainstream community because of the hope planted by the new school for their children,” said the WB article entitled “Our High School got a Radical Upgrade.”

KALAHI-CIDDS undertakings cover “the poorest municipalities of the poorest provinces” in the country, the WB report said, adding that each individual project is always “driven by public demand.”

“Villagers are trained to identify their most urgent deprivations. They design the projects and write proposals to address these needs. The best proposals in the municipality win the funding for the projects.
As reported by the people, the new roads, schools, water systems, mills, boats, and dams have done wonders for their villages. More importantly, the process is empowering the poor,” the WB report added.

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