Philippines International Review
Pilot issue, Winter 1997-98

Last June 1997, rising tensions between the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Central Mindanao erupted when the AFP launched a massive attack on Camp Rajamuda, one of the MILF's most important base areas, second only to Camp Abubakar. In July, Ma. Cristina V. Rodriguez, editor of Philippine News and Features, joined a three-day relief mission to Cotabato jointly organized by the Manila-based Ecumenical Commission for Displaced Families and Communities (ECDFC) and the Cotabato-based Pagsagop Foundation. The mission helped provide urgently-needed relief goods to about 700 families among the estimated tens of thousands of civilians affected by this recent fighting in an already war-ravaged region. According to ECDFC, the reported number of families affected by the 17 June military operation against the MILF in the five towns as of August 1997 stood at 19,098. The following is a condensed version of the article written by Ms. Rodriguez about that experience for ECDFC Monitor (Vol.12, No. 4, July-August 1997).

Massive evacuations had been happening since June in five boundary towns of North Cotabato and Maguindanao provinces. While newspapers had been reporting on the fighting and the negotiations between the Moro and government forces, little was known about the real impact of these activities on the civilian population.

Signs of war
Signs of war started to become visible in Kabacan, about 40 kilometers from Kidapawan. Vehicles had to slow down at checkpoints surrounded by sandbags and guarded by army soldiers with M-16 rifles, who frowned and peered at each passenger. Army soldiers in camouflage brown, armed and heavy-booted, also rode on public buses up and down the highway. A few kilometers out of Kabacan town, signs of recent fighting were more obvious. Banana trunks split in half. Gemelina trees peppered with bullet holes. In Pagalungan's Bulit village, an exploding bomb created a crater the size of four nipa huts, now filled with rainwater. The soldiers stay in huts along the highway, whose owners have camped in nearby schools, or in detachments surrounded by sandbags or protective trenches, with net-protected guardhouses.

Many of the refugees were camped in the University of Mindanao in Kabacan town, Tunggol Elementary School and Tunggol National High School in Pagalungan town, and in a newly-built public market now used as evacuation center. A nearby cockpit, rice mill and granary were also occupied by refugees, as well as relatives' houses nearby. At the elementary school, most classes have gone on and the refugees try to stay out of sight, keeping in back of the school grounds. Classes in some buildings have been moved so that families staying there do not have to leave during the day. Classes in the high school have been suspended for four weeks, except in two of the six or so buildings.

The children refugees
Many children had running noses or were coughing, some experienced bum stomachs. Several, carried on their mother's or father's lap, had fever. One boy was lying on a buri mat over strips of lumber placed flat on the earth. He had very dry skin, sunken eyes, and could not lift his head, looking severely malnourished. His mother said he had broken a rib from a fall he took several months ago. The boy's mother was sitting with him, cradling another baby, in an unfinished shed. The midwife stationed in the elementary school said that four babies have been born in the evacuation centers. All four were fine, but older children (under age 7) were showing various ailments. She said she has referred at least nine to clinics or hospitals because she was unable to handle their cases. Some were vomiting. She did not mention the case of the malnourished boy.

The children refugees have little to do. Sometimes adults hang a rope from beams and tie a malong to the rope's end, making a swing where the younger and lighter children can play. But the older children are left mostly with nothing to do. One boy was pulling a milk can tied with a plastic rope. An older boy kicked the can, destroying the toy. A girl nearby ran after the mischievous older boy. Some children just sat and stared at visitors. Others found visitors a diversion and some poked at me, my hair, my camera. Oblivious of visitors, two school-age boys played a rubber-band game, keenly watched by four other boys.

I talked to a 19-year old boy who said he failed to enroll this semester because he had to join his family in the evacuation center. He was in second-year college in Cotabato City, taking up a BA in Social Work. He was being put through school by two sisters working as maids in the Middle East. A boy of about 15, speaking fluent Tagalog, came up and freely told of how he and his younger brother had escaped a battle by diving through a nearby irrigation ditch, and walked crouching until they reached the relative safety of the highway.

Many of the children were naked, but some wore fresh clothes, probably from relief goods. When the relief team gave away bags of biscuits to the children, I noticed that many had to be pulled to get into line. They were hesitant about putting out their hands. The biscuits had to be handed over. Mothers ran up to get their children into the line.

The relief effort
While local govermment units also had organized relief missions, the refugees I talked to said that "NGOs" (including the Red Cross, Catholic Church volunteers, NCCP, UCCP, Tripod, Médicins Sans Frontiers), came more often. The goods distributed by the ECDFC-Pagsagop relief team seemed to have been deeply appreciated by the refugees. The system of distribution also appeared to work well. Unlike government teams who looked down on refugee families who tried to join the distribution list more than once, the ECDFC-Pagsagop relief team simply made adjustments when they felt these were called for. They showed a grasp of the evacuees' natural reaction to insecurity and did not make a fuss but were firm about their system.

But more important, the relief team leader, in this case, Atty. Solema Jubilan, aided by volunteers, local leaders, and Mr. Delfin Moreno, a Maguindanaoan who helped in the translation, spent more time in explaining the mission's purposes, introducing the ECDFC and Pagsagop, and generally treating the evacuees like people who deserve explanation.

Later, as we were riding back to Kidapawan, and the relief team was discussing how bad the situation was for those in the public market — the evacuees there were exposed to the rain because the building had no walls, there were no toilets nearby, and the children were sleeping on mats placed over packed earth — I pondered that this was 1997, almost the eve of Philippines 2000. I wondered what the future would be for the people of Cotabato and Maguindanao.