PEACEBUILDING THROUGH COMMUNITY HEALTH CARE PROGRAM  by Dann Pantoja and Christina Barkman

Peacebuilders Community Inc. (PBCI), through their friends in British Columbia, Canada, had just completed raising funds to jump-start a sustainable community health care program.  This will enhance our ability to serve the health needs of the communities we serve, especially the displaced families affected by ongoing conflict in Mindanao.

PBCI’s community health care ministry is a major aspect of peacebuilding, as the effects and costs of war limit the already insufficient healthcare directives in Mindanao and the whole Philippines.

During the height of the 2008 War, there were 610,000 internally displaced people in Mindanao due to the escalated armed conflict between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). With unhealthy living conditions in the evacuation centres, there was an increasing need for free medical care.

PBCI has partnered with Reach International Healthcare and Training to address the needs of millions of Filipinos who have limited or no access to medical care. PBCI’s partnership with Reach International enables the medical team to serve in many of the conflicted areas of Mindanao, where PBCI has built trusting relationships.

Reach International has been bringing much-needed medical care and healthcare training to the people of Mindanao for the past six years, with Dr. Samuel Evans, M.D. as its founder and Director. With weekly trips to often very remote areas of Mindanao, Reach International cares for roughly 200 patients per day and conducts around 30 surgeries during each 3-day clinic.

The medical team also focuses on providing free healthcare training, which enables local health workers to attend to many of their own community’s medical needs. The training is part of holistic community development, creating self-sufficient communities where basic health needs are met.

PBCI’s volunteer Peace and Reconciliation Teams have participated in the healthcare training and has become active in medical work among the displaced people in Mindanao.

Because of the community healthcare team’s major role in peacebuilding, PBCI desires to strengthen, improve and expand our healing ministry.  A sustainable, community-based healthcare program would provide for more reliable assessments of patients, a superior accessibility to communities and improved efficiency in serving the displaced people.

LOCAL STUDENTS JOIN PEACE MEDICAL MISSION  by Elwyn Neri

Meeting the needs of war victims through medical ministry--from teeth extractions to minor surgeries--is an important way for Peacebuilders Community Inc. (BPCI) to bridge relationships in the Philippines.

PBCI, a ministry of Mennonite Church Canada Witness, recently held a healthcare training and medical clinic in Central Mindanao, where armed conflict between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) has been ongoing since July. Partnering with Reach International Healthcare and Training, the team was able to treat 113 medical patients December 6 and 7, 2008.

Twenty-one students from Southern Christian College (SCC), a partner of PBCI, participated in two days of instruction on First Aid and facilitating medical consultations, followed by two days of practical application. Some of these students are members of PBCI’s Peace and Reconciliation Team (PAR-T).  Together, they represented the tri-people of Mindanao--the Bangsamoro Muslim people, the indigenous Lumads, and migrants, mostly Christians, from Northern Philippines.

The three people groups of Mindanao working together in a peacebuilding effort is always a significant event. The MILF is composed primarily of Bangsmoro people while GRP supporters are mostly Christian migrants. So with the MILF and GRP at war, the grassroots Bangsamoro and Migrants are affected by the conflict and the Indigenous People are historically marginalized.

The medical mission was an effective way to build trusting relationships between the young tri-people of Mindanao. The training they received will also be beneficial to their respective home communities.

As a PBCI PAR-T leader, I found it was encouraging to work and learn together with these tri-people youth volunteers.

The two-day medical clinic took place at Dungguan, Datu Montawal, a Bangsamoro community, a few kilometers where MILF's armed wing (the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces) operates.  The community of Dungguan was very grateful for the medical-dental mission.  A patient told me, “We are so thankful because we don’t have enough money to go to the hospital to remove this cyst. And now you do it for free!”

Another community leader also invited our team for another medical-dental clinic in his area after seeing what we are doing: "We have been experiencing the sincerity with which you serve.  Please come back and bring your services to our village."

It was our joy to see people learn to help others in simple yet very practical ways.

PBCI ATTENDS MINDANAO INTER-TRIBAL CONFERENCE  by Dann Pantoja, Director of Field Operations

The Katawhang Lumad Council of Peoples Representatives of the Mindanao People’s Peace Movement (MPPM) called for a Mindanao Inter-Tribal Conference last August 31-Sept. 3, 2007 at Barangay Sungku, Municipality of Lantapan, Province of Bukidnon—the Ancestral Land of the Talaandigs.

The general objective of the consultation was to intensify the struggle for the realization of Right to Self Determination through the restoration of the concrete infrastructure for territorial governance of Indigenous Peoples in Mindanao. 

Specifically, the consultation sought to achieve the following objectives:

::  Give orientation on basic rights
     of Indigenous Peoples;

::  Updates on current initiatives
     of organizations advancing the
     rights of the Indigenous Peoples;

::  Create the Katawhang Lumad
     Secretariat of the Mindanao
     Peoples’ Peace Movement that
     will coordinate the people’s
     initiatives;

::  Come up with a comprehensive
     Katawhang Lumad Agenda;

The gathering was mainly discussion-sharings among and between the participants foremost of which were focused on the issues and concerns confronting the Indigenous Peoples in their respective communities.

As a tri-people community of peacebuilding volunteers, Peacebuilders Community, Inc. (PBCI) was invited to join our Katawhang Lumad brothers and sisters in this significant gathering.  It was a very good avenue for some of us, the non-Katawhang Lumad, to interact and learn from the discussion-sharings during the conference.

After a week, PBCI hosted the first strategic meeting of the newly-elected Katawhang Lumad Secretariat of the Mindanao Peoples’ Peace Movement at the Peacebuilders Community Center in Davao City.  It was our privilege and honor to serve these women and men who have been entrusted with sacred responsibility of leading the Indigenous Peoples of Mindanao.  This was also a way of showing solidarity to the Katawhang Lumad in their struggle for the advancement of their Right to Self-Determination as a people.


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