Friday, 03 September 2010
| The peacebuilding course called OP Kors! |
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| by H. Marcos C. Mordeno | |
| Monday, 22 February 2010 06:51 | |
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(From the book "Soldiers for Peace" published by the Balay Mindanao Foundation, Inc. Authored by Bobby Timonera, one of the editors at MindaNews, the book, which contains 21 stories on peacebuilding, was launched at the Ateneo de Davao University on February 19. This piece was written by H. Marcos C. Mordeno, also an editor of MindaNews). All their lives as soldiers revolved around hunting the “enemy” and dutifully reporting statistics on casualties, rebels killed or captured, firearms recovered and other stuff that readers usually find in the pages of the morning papers. But for five days in October 2009, 25 junior officers of the AFP’s Eastern Mindanao Command and six police officers did what used to be unthinkable – attend Operation Peace Course (OP Kors!), a training-workshop on peace building organized by Balay Mindanaw. This batch of participants from the security sector was joined by three education officials from Compostela Valley. For the soldiers and policemen, being in civvies was a welcome relief. The organizers anticipated that the participants would need the physical comfort that goes with being in civilian clothes. This course would likely make them sweat, placing squarely for their consideration as it would the dilemma of trying to reconcile the concepts of peace building with the nature of their profession. After all, these are field-based officers who directly confront rebels and other armed groups, and not always peaceably. For most of them, it was perhaps their first time, too, to listen to relatively radical inputs – and from superior officers at that! These inputs would, at first glance, seemingly contradict long-held institutional practices and policies that the military and police organizations jealously guard. The participants were also scheduled for a crash course in Mindanao history and conflict and some updates on the stalled peace processes with rebel groups. These are intended to stress the importance of peacefully resolving the decades-old communist-led and Moro rebellions. Maj. Khrisnamurti Mortela, one of the trainers, told the participants that the training, the thirteenth of its kind for EastMincom officers, would give them another lens at understanding the Mindanao conflict and that it would hopefully expand their outlook. He said it forms part of the program to institutionalize peace building and conflict management in the Armed Forces of the Philippines and local government units toward meaningful security sector reform. Col. Julieto Ando, chief of EastMincom’s Civil Military Operations, stressed that officers should learn some tools in peace building and conflict management for them to become responsible fighters and peace builders. “Peace building teaches you to deal with community and stakeholders because we need their help. They are (our) partners,” he admonished. He reminded the participants that the military could not do it alone. Indeed, speaker after speaker emphasized the need for the military to shed off its messianic complex and to treat the conflict as a problem that requires coordination with other government agencies and non-government stakeholders. Angel Antonio Salanga III, a consultant to the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, noted that in many conflict-affected areas in Mindanao, local governance and mandated agencies are non-functional. In these places, it would often fall upon the military units operating there to facilitate the delivery of basic and social services. While this state of affairs demonstrates the commendable commitment of soldiers to serve the people, Salanga reminds that, “There are NGOs and government sectors moving along this line. Know the local development plans. Don’t think you’re the only ones working. Engage the officials but beware lest you become their bodyguards; we know how politicians work. Peace and Order Councils can also be a venue if you’re a member. Don’t do the work of the mandated agencies. But make them move.” But it was Col. Lysander Suerte, 10th Infantry Division chief of staff, who sort of stirred up the hornet’s nest with his two papers – a candid assessment of the Philippine situation and a policy paper that seeks to rectify the apparent failure of successive governments to resolve the rebellions. He opined that protracted conflict, not insurgent victory, is the real threat. “If armed conflict is not resolved, 10 years from now, the Philippines will be no more,” he warned. He observes that at present, armed conflict seems to have been accepted as a given, a fact of life that is here to stay. Suerte, who said he wrote the papers not as a military official but as a Filipino, recommended stopping the armed response, redefining security, and pushing for the peace processes, governance reforms and accelerated development. Stopping the armed response does not mean putting a stop to operations, he clarified. “But operations should secure the communities and protect/enhance economic activities. Soldiers should stop looking for imagined enemies and relying on the number of enemies killed as killing is a symptom of failure. Body counts increase the measurement of failure,” he said. He noted that various operational plans from Presidents Aquino to Arroyo have failed to lick the New People’s Army, armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines. He opined that the failure owed in large part to the absence of a holistic approach. The colonel further noted that ISO (internal security operation) has become the soldier’s life but that the increase in the number of rebels puts a question on the government’s strategy. He wondered why the government has to preoccupy itself with an armed group that represents only about .00005 percent of the country’s population. (The NPA’s current strength is estimated at 5,000. Philippine population stands at around 90,000,000.) “Why not attend to the many others? Are they (the NPA) really a threat to security or we just want (to keep) our jobs?” he posed to the participants. “We send men to war. Why not send men for peace. Peace is a condition that can be imposed. War, on the other hand, we wait for to end. Why are there no peace warriors? If we put the rebels in a dilemma (by not engaging in armed response), they have to explain their (continued) armed struggle,” he argued. Suerte added that security should mean seven elements – economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community and political security. Aside from engaging the participants in critical discussions about the policies governing the security sector and imparting skills in conflict management, the training also touched on philosophical themes. For instance, Chris Sumajit, of the Theosophical Society of the Philippines, took the participants to the necessary yet rare journey toward inner peace. His input combined the psychological, physiological and experiential ways of attaining peace at the level of self, including managing stress, controlling anger and getting rid of emotional baggage. “Anger is poison. Find the source of your anger,” he said. One participant could not help asking Sumajit if the things he said did not contradict their work as soldiers. “Most of us here are in the military. Will this actually help us in actual situations? Is it possible not to have baggage after you kill an enemy in combat?” he asked. “If you shoot the enemy with anger in your heart, you will carry it to your death. You can do it without hatred, just for the sake of duty. There is no emotion involved so there is no baggage,” Sumajit replied. Yet, for all the seriousness of the whole thing, there were light moments too. The participants enjoyed the simulation exercise where each of them played a role in a fictitious town marred by political squabble, social unrest, non-delivery of basic services and other problems. They also had fun together the night before the last day of the training, in an after-dinner socials where everybody had a chance to sing a song or two. After the last bottle of beer had been emptied they huddled for the closing prayers after belting out John Lennon’s “Imagine”. OP Kors! is a comprehensive peace building course designed for peace builders in Mindanao. It aims at building peace cadres coming from different sectors of society, and multiplying peace constituency at the different levels of engagement. It also provides theoretical inputs with matching practical application based on community-based experiences and other peace initiatives. (From the book "Soldiers for Peace" published by the Balay Mindanao Foundation, Inc. Authored by Bobby Timonera, one of the editors at MindaNews, the book, which contains 21 stories on peacebuilding, was launched at the Ateneo de Davao University on February 19. This piece was written by H. Marcos C. Mordeno, also an editor of MindaNews). Share this story through the following Social Media sites:            |
