Photo by AKP Images
DATU PIANG, Maguindanao — In the afternoon rain, Raiz Adteg, 16, walked somberly on his way to bury his baby sister, one-year-old Anariza, who died from diarrhea that morning at the evacuation center in the town plaza here.
To shield his sister from the pounding rain, Adteg held a tiny red umbrella over her body, dead only for four hours and wrapped in a malong (ethnic cloth) and a mat tied on each end of two bamboo poles carried on the shoulders of an uncle and cousin.
“We had no money to buy medicine,” he said in hushed tone, his young face dazed and uncomprehending.
It has been more than a month now after Adteg’s family fled their home in Barangay (village) Magaslong due to military offensives against three of 16 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) base commands in Central Mindanao.
The offensive is still part of the fighting that escalated after the Supreme Court restrained the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) in Putrajaya, Malaysia in August.
Two months later on October 14, the Supreme Court ruled the MOA-AD as unconstitutional, saying that many provisions in the agreement depart from the present Constitution.
Government says it would talk again peace with the MILF but only if it surrenders its wanted commanders. But the MILF says it could no longer control its field commanders wanting to retaliate the shelving of the agreement that would have created the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity.
“The war should stop. We want to go home,” said Adteg’s uncle as the trio marched briskly towards the cemetery. Soon, it will be the mid-afternoon prayer and, in accordance with the Muslim ritual of burial, the dead should be buried at least before sundown.
In this historic town that lies along the famed Rio Grande de Mindanao, Anariza’s death passed unnoticed but eloquently spoke of the anguish and helplessness of more than 10,000 families who have sought refuge here since fighting began in early August.
Fifty-six internally displaced persons (IDPs) have already died in Maguindanao, 38 of whom due to illness and 18 from actual encounters since fighting between government and the MILF escalated in August, according to the Department of Health in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (DOH-ARMM).
In a November 4 report, DOH-ARMM also reported that about 21 of the recorded deaths caused by illness were ages five years old and below. Diarrhea is the number one leading cause of death among IDPs.
The statistics included siblings Jamir, 3, and Jamiha, 1 whose father Merin Hardeng from Barangay Irian, Datu Saudi Ampatuan is still at a loss for words until now. He could barely remember the exact date in October when they died almost within the same day. “It is painful to lose your children,” he said.
Crisis
The rising death toll of infants and children and increase in the number of IDPs underscore the unfolding humanitarian crisis in the provinces of Maguindanao, North Cotabato, Lanao Del Sur and Lanao Del Norte.
The National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) as of November 6 reported that 75,931 families or 375,864 persons are affected by the ongoing offensives.
NDCC also declared apart from Maguindanao the municipalities of Libungan in Cotabato and Tangkal, Linamon, Kauswagan, Munai, and Kolambugan, Lanao Del Norte under a state of calamity.
The Amnesty International (AI) reported in late October that fighting in Mindanao in the last two months has already displaced 610,000 people.
In its report entitled “Shattered Peace in Mindanao: The Human Cost of Conflict in the Philippines,” AI noted that although the total number of currently displaced people reached almost 400,000, more than two-thirds chose to stay with their relatives than in any of the 150 IDP centers provided by the government. More than one-fourth of the 610,000 recorded IDPs have gone back to their villages.
In the poblacion (town plaza) here alone, some 28 evacuation centers made of blue sack tarpaulins have arisen, making the town look more like a “tent center.”
Datu Piang hosts IDPs not only from its 20 barangays but also from nearby Datu Saudi Ampatuan, Maguindanao and Midsayap, Pikit and Aleosan towns of North Cotabato, said town official Musib Uy Tan.
“Moro evacuees feel safer here than going to Christian-dominated areas,” Tan said.
Major public buildings have been converted into evacuation centers including the Fourth Shariah Circuit Court, Bureau of Fire Protection, Local Civil Registry, Mubarak mosque, elementary and national high schools, the public library, the gym and even the fish landing.
At the fish landing here, pump boat drivers recalled massively ferrying families fleeing the fighting in the last two months. Each ride would cost PhP 500 (USD 10).
“But all is silent now. All those places over there are now ghost towns,” said pump boat driver Joel Paam, 22, pointing at the direction of barangays across the river.
But apart from fighting, evacuees still face the threat from flooding. Waters of the Rio Grande de Mindanao easily swell during the rains, similar to what happened in July and August forcing evacuees to transfer to higher grounds.
“Stop the war now. Life is too difficult here in the plaza,” said Farida Ginaet, 37, who joined a rally held by <i> bakwits, </i> a local term for evacuees, in front of the plaza gate.
“When will this war ever stop?” asked Farida, who raises her seven children on her own.
At a gazebo inside the plaza early last week, other mothers also raised the same question as they crowded a group of journalists whom they pleaded desperately to listen to their stories.
The journalists were participants to a media tour in late October going around conflict-affected areas in North Cotabato, Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Norte hosted by the Mindanao Peoples Caucus.
An elderly woman came forward to say her house was burned by soldiers; another one said her eight-year-old son was wounded from splinters of a howitzer bomb. A young mother complained that the last time her family received food ration was during the Eid’l Fit’r in end-September where each family was given 25 kilos of rice. Help came only in trickles, she said.
“These all would stop if only the government will sign the MOA-AD,” said Syrian Baisangcupan, a community leader.
Moro civil society organizations and the MILF have sounded the alarm over what they describe as a looming “international humanitarian crisis” in the face of increasing military offensives.
Lawyer Zainudin Malang of the MoroLaw Center said that Moro CSOs will set up a refugee, human rights and media secretariat to monitor the worsening plight of IDPs and the alarming rise in number of human rights violations.
They also called on the United Nations to intervene and put pressure on both government and MILF to go back to the negotiating table. MILF, for its part, appealed for the UN to set up an observer post to monitor the situation in some 150 IDP centers all over Central Mindanao.
AI in its report echoed concerns over the plight of IDPs that had “prompted aid agencies to warn of a possible humanitarian crisis if plans were not put in place to provide for the needs of the local population amidst the possibility of an increase in fighting.”
AI also called for the Philippine government to adhere to the UN Guiding Principles for Internal Displacement specifically citing:
Principle 3(1) which states: “National authorities have the primary duty and responsibility to provide protection and humanitarian assistance to internally displaced persons” and;
Principle 24 (2) “Humanitarian assistance to internally displaced persons shall not be diverted, in particular for political or military reasons.” – 31 October 2008 – Philippine Human Rights Reporting Project
