By KATHLEEN T. OKUBO
www.nordis.net

People on the ground in Benguet, Abra, Kalinga, Mt. Province, Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur these passed three weeks have informed us of troop movements and soldiery entering their communities. Then in the beginning of this month radio and news reports persistently reported of AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) military drives and campaigns in the same general areas of the same communities.

AFP Medical missions and building schools. The army conducting these services in the barrios? What has become of our heealth workers? Our government engineering services? Does it mean that the uniform is given the money for our health services? our education infrastructures? Our roads? Are not these civilian services for the civilian population? Is the army taking over the budget, the jobs, and the civilian governance and community leadership?

Armed troop movements in the ricefields, pastures and private forests in the northern communities of the Cordillera have trampled, bombed and burned these economic, water and food resources of the population of these provinces. The whole of Luzon, North of Manila have greatly suffered from the typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng and are still in the first steps of recovery. So much more for the indigenous peoples communities of the Cordillera whose subsistence economies greatly depend on the agricultural schedule of the availability of irrigated water abundant during the rainy season, and the sunshine in the summer to dry grain, to ripen fruit and seeds for the next agricultural cycle.

Bombs were recently dropped from the airplane and choppers (one may think this is can only be true in movies about WWII in the 1940s, Vietnam war in the 70s or the invasion of Iraq 2003); in the forests of Kili, Tubo, Mainit or the general boundary of Mt. Province, Abra and Kalinga. (A rich gold vein area applied for by several mining companies).

When these military troop movements and raids happened in the generally same areas of the tri-boundary in the early 80s, and then the bombings of Marag valley in the late 80s to early 90s; there were a number of displaced villages and peoples. The journalists then had a new added vocabulary – internal refugees. News of famine and loss of livelihood in the Cordillera was true but unbelievable then to people in the cities but it did happen and only when there were troop movements of the size of a whole division like this one now in the provinces of Ilocos sur and norte, Abra, Mt. Province and Kalinga.

I have never witnessed war but I have listened to negotiations for peace-pacts and tribal wars, I have visited and interviewed internal refugees, I have walked some to see the crater made by an AFP bomb in a pasture land; I have cringed in government press conferences where they gloat about their development and peace initiatives.

Twenty years of news coverage has taught me that the government officialdom consider military raids and campaigns like this part of their peace and development program. Their favourite enemy is the ordinary unarmed and upright citizen whom they usually disguise as an NPA.

In reality it has been the deterioration of peace and the masking of no development. And most of all when there are military campaigns like what is happening now in the north with the AFP’s 5th division, expect more human rights violations both individual and collective human rights. Unpeace is nigh, as those accused of being doomsday soothsayers say.

Dear civilians and upright citizens, this time, we only have each other. Kung Hei Fat Choy and Happy Valentines!# nordis.net