DAVAO CITY—The onslaught of development projects, especially mining, and media reporting about the Mindanao conflict have been blamed for fanning violence in many areas in Mindanao, according to the findings of a survey on the peace process in Mindanao. The survey was commissioned by a group of Christian bishops and Muslim ulama.

Although the survey largely concentrated on the critique of local communities about the conduct of the peace negotiation between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, participants also identified mining, plantations and other development projects, as well as warlordism and tribal vengeance killing, as the other sources of conflict in Mindanao.

Under the item “Other sources of conflict,” participants of the 311 focused group discussions (FGDs) conducted by Konsult Mindanaw! between April and June 2009 said they have faced varying issues in their places. These include environmental conflicts on mining and plantations in the Caraga, Northern Mindanao, Zamboanga, Davao  and Southern Mindanao regions; arms trade, illegal-drug trade, warlordism and election cheating in eastern and northern Mindanao; kidnapping issues in the southwestern island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi and the Zamboanga Peninsula; and the traditional rido or clan war to exact vengeance in many Moro areas.

“The different regions and sectors have to also contend with unique sources of conflict,” the survey said.

The participants have recommended to the government to “avoid development projects that lead to conflict, e.g. mining.”

“The respondents said that where there is mining or other development projects, there are also conflicts, there are military detachments and checkpoints being established,” said Jesuit priest Fr. Albert Alejo of the Ateneo de Davao University, when he presented to President Arroyo on Thursday last week the result of the survey.

The survey also recommended to “integrate people’s cultural priorities and religious sensitivity into peace and development planning.”

“Development planning must give priority to the delivery of basic goods and services, like food, health care and education.

Development must be linked with good governance. Make sure that development projects are not tainted with corruption,” said the survey recommendation.

The survey also asked authorities to “examine roots of conflict, particularly land conflicts,” saying that it was the “skewed laws and policies in the past [that] dispossess ethnic groups.”

In areas besieged with political warlords, the participants wanted the government to “regulate the use of firearms; and disband, abolish and disarm armed groups and private armies through the concerted efforts of religious and tribal leaders, civil societies and the academe with the support of the Armed Forces of the Philippines [AFP] and the Philippine National Police [PNP].”

“[Government must] clarify and delineate the roles of the AFP and the PNP to synchronize the peace negotiations with all armed groups; and to retrieve, document and reactivate traditional and indigenous conflict resolutions,” the recommendations said.

Also, the participants cast their aspersion on the role of news organizations in heightening the animosity between the warring parties by playing up on the prejudices and biases that have divided the residents along religious and ethnic lines.

“Media contribute a lot to the perpetuation of these biases,” said the survey, whose findings were culled from a discussion forum called FGDs among selected and invited participants to represent their sectoral organization.

A female facilitator in the FGD with news reporters and key media representatives in Mindanao held here told the group that the commentary against the style of reporting conflict in the island came out in many of the FGDs.

During the last four decades since the then-monolithic Moro National Liberation Front was founded in 1968 by university professor Nur Misuari, news organizations have been drawing flak from the government, civic and even the revolutionary groups for reporting conflict from the viewpoint of body counts and other battle statistics.

In the all-out military offensive against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in 2002, tourism and business groups in the Davao region invited news organizations to a forum where the former expressed their disappointment with media reporting, portraying the entire island in armed conflagration.

A member of the MILF peace panel also castigated a gathering of Manila-based editors and their Mindanao-based reporters for “portraying the MILF as a terrorist organization by linking it with the Abu Sayyaf and the regional terror cell, the Indonesia-based Jema’ah al-Islamiyah.”

The Konsult Mindanaw! survey showed media culpability in magnifying the biases and prejudices through nomenclatures such as attaching the word Muslim to descriptions like terrorists, bandits and extremists.

Konsult Mindanaw! is formed by academicians and research experts from selected religious-run universities. It gathered together the 4,916 participants—mostly leaders and key personalities of organizations from nine social, political and economic sectors in Mindanao—into the regional FGDs to share their views on the four main questions: What does peace mean to you?  What are your recommendations on the peace talks between the GRP (government) and the MILF? What other steps, activities or programs should be undertaken to achieve peace in Mindanao? and, What can you personally offer, commit or even sacrifice in order to have meaningful peace in Mindanao?

The Bishops-Ulama Conference (BUC) commissioned last year Konsult Mindanaw! to conduct the island-wide consultations after the BUC accepted the challenge of the President, who told an international motor show that her administration has changed its tact in pursuing peace.

“These recent developments in the South lead to a change in the basic premise of our peace efforts: the focus of our talks shall shift from the armed groups to the communities. The parameters governing our negotiations shall be a balance between constitutionality and public sentiment.