Col. Julieto Ando, of the Eastern Mindanao Command, has stressed this point to junior military officers who attended the Operation Peace Course (OPKORS), a conflict management and peace building training, now on its seventh in a series, organized by the AFP, Balay Mindanao Foundation Inc. and other partners.
“Instead, count how many enemies you have convinced back to the folds of law,” Ando said in his presentation on “The Challenge: Towards Fresher Perspectives”.
He said it involves changing perspectives from calling “boodle fights” to “boodle peace” at the least to building consensus and partnerships with other stakeholders to win peace.
The new mindset for military operations in Mindanao, he said, calls for more focus on building rather than destroying.
For five days, 30 junior military officers of the 10th infantry division have studied how exactly this could be done. The training was held from September 13 to 19 at the Mindanao Training Resource Center in Davao City.
Pulled out from their areas of responsibility, the officers became students again attending lectures and workshops on how to manage conflict and become peace builders.
The course covered a comprehensive set of topics to provide them an opportunity to learn on peace building so they can apply and promote it in their units.
The discussions were heavy on theoretical inputs but also weighed on practical applications from community based experiences and other peace initiatives.
Included among the nine modules were presentations and workshops on the context of conflict management and peace building work in Mindanao, the imperatives of security sector reform in peace building, human rights and international humanitarian law, the government’s thrust on peace building, understanding conflict and peace, theories of peace, and localizing the peace agenda.
But there were also presentations that focused on skills for peace building such as the one on conflict analysis where they learned about mapping conflict parties and other tools and on inner peace where the military officers were introduced to self transformation through self awareness.
One of the lecturers actually asked participants to situate themselves in front of the vast universe for them to see how much they need to learn, they were introduced to development and management of anger, and the relationship between personal emotional baggages and conflict processes.
“Does it make you less courageous as soldiers?” Lt. Gen. Raymundo B. Ferrer, Eastmincom commanding general, asked participants towards the end of the training on their impression of the peace building initiative.
2Lt. Robert Entoma, platoon leader of the Charlie Company of the 66th Infantry Battalion based in New Bataan, Compostela Valley, said it did not diminish his courage and bravery.
“But we still need to do combat operations,” he said.
“Definitely. We are not talking about stopping that. While we are running after them, we are also offering a peaceful way for the rebels. With the SIP (Social Integration Program) we reintegrate them to community as peace loving citizens,” Ferrer explained.
Training has been aimed, he added, at making soldiers understand, know, and promote peace toward military transformation.
The desired result, Ferrer said, is to transform perception from fear to respect for the soldier, from mistrust to mutual trust, from an image of oppressor to protector, and from plain warriors to peace builders.
“Military operations alone will not solve social divide in the face of conflict and unpeace. There should be other approaches like dialoguing to understand the divide and reorienting the military in the midst of conflict,” he added.
Soldiers clarified that there are also problems in the implementation of the SIP that has affected their work in handling reintegration of the rebels.
Ferrer cited that the military has been part of the problem as indicated by the stories of abuses, public fear for the soldiers, and it being seen as an occupying force.
He cited examples of abuses made by the military in Basilan where he was previously assigned and how it contributed to the unpeace in the communities.
He said the abuses -- such as disrespect to property, elderly, and women -- contributed to the resistance of the communities to the path of peace.
“Many are fighting the Marines and ambush them not because of their struggle for independence, but because they hate us,” Ferrer said.
But the military, he said, is a stakeholder to peace and should be part of the solution.
Ferrer said the soldiers have to be true to their commitment and professionalism to service.
“We must be able to repair the damage that has been done to the society. That is why we are here. We are training you to understand peace, know peace and promote peace,” he added.
Entoma could relate to the situation Ferrer has raised.
He has been assigned to the village where the family of nine-year-old Grecil Buya, slain in a crossfire between the rebels and the Army in 2007. Buya was first identified as a child soldier, which the military later retracted.
“It is so hard to regain the trust of the people in the area,” he said as he related their effort in one of their community based projects.
In the lectures, participants were told that death of a rebel or a civilian will earn for the military more enemies as relatives would vent their ire on the military.
Entoma said that is why peace building and conflict management skills are very important for soldiers like him.
While the military has shifted its strategy from combat based to community based operations, many soldiers are not well equipped to be agents of peace in a time of insurgency, said the fresh graduate from the Philippine Military Academy.
He said he never learned the context and the nuances of peace building in military school.
But he said now that he has been to the training, he vowed to be a soldier and a peace builder.
Entoma said he would share his knowledge and skills to colleagues and promote peace, a vow he will keep both as part of his job and as a personal commitment. (Walter I. Balane / MindaNews)
This training is one of the 10 trainings being organized by the Balay Mindanaw-International Center for Peace (ICPeace) in Partnership with the Eastern Mindanao Command of the AFP. Expecting to train 300 soldiers from the Army, Navy and Police of the 10th, 4th and 6th Infantry Divisions, these trainings aim to develop the capacities of soldiers in analyzing and managing conflicts in their areas of operation and for them to be able to educate other fellow soldiers about the fundamentals of peace building.
As the 2009 Mindanaw Week of Peace opened yesterday, the last batch of soldiers and police attending the peace course for the Eastern Mindanao Command gathered together (a total of 27 participants coming from the 6th and 4th Infantry Divisions and Philippine National Police-Region 10) and joined Balay Mindanaw on the call for greater accountability and justice on the Maguindanao massacre.
