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In
considering the requirements for the rehabilitation of
Europe, the physical loss of life, the visible
destruction of cities, factories, mines and railroads
was correctly estimated, but it has become obvious
during recent months that this visible destruction was
probably less serious than the dislocation of the entire
fabric of European economy. —US Secretary of State
George C. Marshall, in his June 5, 1947, speech
launching the “Marshall Plan” that rehabilitated Europe
after World War II.
SPEAKER
Jose de Venecia Jr. recently called for a “Marshall
Plan” in Mindanao to solve the ongoing conflict in the
area once and for all, particularly in certain places
like Basilan and Maguindanao. It’s a call that is
supported by Sen. Gregorio Honasan, who, as a former
soldier, saw extensive action in Mindanao a few decades
ago.
De
Venecia said Mindanao needs a P46-billion five-year
program to build infrastructure, schools, hospitals and
farm-to-market roads to be financed by donations from
the United States, Europe, Scandinavian countries,
Australia, Japan and our neighbors in Southeast Asia.
The
program, he says, will be “electrifying and effective”
such that rebels will be lured from their lairs to
rejoin mainstream society.
Such a
grand vision for Mindanao, and certainly Mindanaoans are
hoping the Speaker would follow up on his
pronouncements.
But all
this talk about a Marshall Plan for
Mindanao should be sounding like a broken record for Mindanaoans now
as politicians in the past have always parroted it like
a magic spiel every time firefights between rebels and
soldiers, which dislocated thousands of civilians,
erupted.
Speaker
de Venecia always talked about it during the time of
President Fidel V. Ramos. President Ramos actually moved
a step further by commissioning the drafting of the
Mindanao 2000 Framework Plan, but all those efforts came
to naught as the House of Representatives, then headed
by de Venecia, didn’t provide the money.
In March
2003, Foreign Secretary Blas Ople also mouthed the same
thing following a major conflagration in Maguindanao,
promising a $100-million expenditure program to
“accelerate the region’s economic and social
development.” Nothing really came out of the said
pronouncement.
And
lately, following recent ambushes of soldiers in Sulu
and Basilan that claimed the lives of more than two
dozen, de Venecia is singing the tune again. Is he
serious this time? Should we now start to rejoice?
We
certainly hope so, because an honest-to-goodness
economic deal for Mindanao would surely go a long way in
addressing this age-old scourge that has been stifling
development, not only in Mindanao but the entire
country.
In the
last decade or more, our neighbors in the Asia-Pacific
region have been growing fast and have been lifting up
millions of people out of poverty. Yet in all those
years, the
Philippines
hardly made a dent on poverty and joblessness simply
because our resources are stuck and wasted in a
low-intensity but festering war.
The
Philippines has also not been able to attract sizeable
foreign direct investments as the continuing stream of
bad news out of Sulu and Maguindanao have kept us out of
the investors’ radar. We will only be taken seriously by
the investor community if it sees that the leadership of
the country is serious about addressing the age-old
“Mindanao conundrum.”
Supposing the government and the international-donor
community indeed are able to muster the will to launch a
Marshall Plan for Mindanao, how should we proceed? We
should take cues from George Marshall, former US
Secretary of State, who launched the original Marshall
Plan that rehabilitated much of Europe after World War
II.
In a
speech at Harvard University on June 5, 1947, Marshall
said: “It is already evident that, before the United
States government can proceed much further in its
efforts to alleviate the situation and help start the
European world on its way to recovery, there must be
some agreements among the countries of Europe as to the
requirements of the situation and the part those
countries themselves will take in order to give proper
effect to whatever action might be undertaken by this
government.
“It
would be neither fitting nor efficacious for this
government to undertake to draw up unilaterally a
program designed to place Europe on its feet
economically. This is the business of the Europeans. The
initiative, I think, must come from Europe.”
Translation: the first step would be for the different
stakeholders in Mindanao to come together and draw up a
grand plan with a clear vision, objectives and detailed
programs and projects, together with national and
regional planning agencies, the private sector, civil
society and the donor agencies. A participatory approach
should be necessary to ensure
that most sectors of
Mindanao society should have a sense of ownership on the outcome of the planning
process.
In fact,
the participatory-planning process itself should be part
of the healing process that Mindanao has to undergo to
build “social capital” and ensure sustainable peace. And
for very practical reasons, it’s necessary to ensure
that programs and projects are those that would have the
greatest social return.
From a
cursory look at the basic statistics, it’s quite obvious
that Mindanao, especially those in areas of conflict,
has long been deprived of the basic necessities of life:
potable water, sanitation, health services and basic
education. A truly participatory-planning process would
ensure that programs to provide these basic necessities
would reach their intended beneficiaries.
Despite
their limited resources, government agencies actually
tried to provide these basic necessities, albeit
incrementally. But massive corruption at the local
levels and cultural baggages like “rido” (clan wars)
always came in the way of progress.
Take
note that after the “peace process” with the Moro
National Liberation Front, the national government and
foreign donor agencies actually poured billions into the
Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, but nothing
tangible has materialized from the supposed spending.
So, if
there’s one big component that should be included in a
Mindanao Marshall Plan, it is massive training in local
governance and extensive buildup of human capital.
It takes
two parties to stop trading in lethal ordnance. But it
takes a bigger, Mindanao-wide army of
public- and private-sector managers, entrepreneurs and
civil-society leaders to usher in broad-based
development and progress. |
