Duyog Mindanao: Peoples’ Campaign for Peace and Solidarity

Duyog (Cebuano for Solidarity) Mindanao is a convergence of various initiatives to address the humanitarian crisis and to call for the cessation of hostilities in Mindanao. The initiatives are expressions of solidarity from various institutions, groups and communities in Metro Manila, Luzon and the Visayas with all the peoples of Mindanao amidst a public opinion grossly apathetic to the situation and ignorant of the roots of the conflict in Mindanao.

Mindanao is on the brink of “war” again, with some areas already in actual war situation following the junking of the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA AD) by the government with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), recently declared unconstitutional by the Philippine Supreme Court.  The government has likewise dissolved its negotiating panel with the MILF, while the latter has been reportedly considering abolition of its own negotiating panel.

Indeed, the danger of a slide to “all-out war” is lurking in the wings with “spoilers”,  from both camps and some quarters jumping on the confusion and fanning the flames of conflict . Vitriol is fueling the tension while thousands of innocent civilians- women, children, elderly evacuate for the nth time to crowded relief centers.  Goods and relief supplies are even hijacked by armed groups.

This latest saga of hostilities have also shown how prejudices are so much based on ignorance and how media can blow this puny bias out to very dangerous proportions.  An anti-Moro, anti-peace rhetoric has dominated the public discourse of late.  Ironically,  the elite opposition, mainstream media and elements in the government-  from local government units, the military and national officials are in this same bandwagon.

Most of the citizenry – specially those from Luzon and the Visayas- have been mostly exposed to this heavily one-sided picture of a conflict-ridden Mindanao in general, and of the treacherous and marauding Moros in particular. It of course does not help that tactical combat excesses borne out of “frustration” of Moro armed units identified with the MILF have been projected again and again and has provided  concrete fodder for this bias to fester.

There is a pressing need to sober up the situation.  There are heroic efforts underway from civil society and from other stakeholders to push this to happen.

But there is also a pressing need for the Filipino “masses” of Luzon and the Visayas including large segments of the settler community in Mindanao to understand the root causes of the conflict in Mindanao.  While most of our citizenry are basically for peace, some of them are drawned to the rhetorics of war in settling the Mindanao problem once and for all.   Even then, there is a pressing need of succor and solidarity for the suffering peoples of Mindanao, the evacuees, victims,  Moro, Lumad, settler alike.

General Objectives

Duyog Mindanao primarily aims to:

• generate broad public support to provide and advocate for humanitarian protection to people in Mindanao affected by the on-going war;
• promote peace by actively campaigning to get all warring forces to a ceasefire towards peaceful resolution of the conflict; and
• contribute to the building of peace constituency in the country.

Specifically, the campaign will issue calls or messages and identify concrete outputs to be accomplished in the course of campaigning.

Campaign Components

• Peoples’ Caravan for Peace and Solidarity for Mindanao – communities’ solidarity action for humanitarian protection and a call for a just and peaceful resolution of the armed conflict in Mindanao
• Resource and Political Support Generation – Public awareness and opinion raising through the support of leading religious, academic, cultural, business, government and non-government institutions and popular personalities; resource generation for direct relief;
• International Peoples’ Solidarity Action to Stop the War – high profile mission to call the warring parties to stop the war that is claiming the lives of people and causing massive displacement of communities; particularly calls the Philippine government to stop total war policy;
• Continuing Mindanao Peace and Human Rights Eduction – Module development for education of the young on the conflict in Mindanao from international human rights perspective.

Campaign Proponents

Among the proponents or convenors of Duyog Mindanao are the Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID), Mindanao Peace Weavers (MPW), La Liga Policy Institute, CARE for Peace, Waging Peace Philippines, Generation Peace, Bangsamoro Peoples’ Solidarity for Peace, Solidarity for Bangsamoro, Care for Peace, Anak Mindanao, Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates, Philippine Human Rights Information Center and Balay Rehabilitation Center.   Each organization is tasked to steer any of the above components of the campaign.

Duyog Mindanao is supported and being endorsed by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), the Bishop Ulama Conference (BUC), and the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict-Southeast Asia.  Other endorsements, sponsorships and co-convenors are invited especially among the Protestant churches, Islamic organizations, political parties, business groups, local officials and legislators, to generate broader base of support from their respective constituents.