WUNRN
PHILIPPINES - Internally Displaced
Women & Children
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An IDP family in Cotabato City, Maguindanao province on
Mindanao island in the southern Philippines |
MANILA, 7 January 2008
(IRIN) - The vast majority of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the
Philippines are in Mindanao Island in the southernmost part of the country.
Department of Social Work and Development (DSWD)
programme development officer Rey Martija told IRIN 90 percent of IDPs come
from Mindanao. In the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) alone, close
to 120,000 persons were forced from their homes in 2007.
“I’ve lost count how many times we’ve had to move out
because of the fighting,” Samira Usman told IRIN.
Samira Usman and her family of six, and most of the
community, have abandoned their home in Kudal village, Pagalungan town,
Maguindanao Province, numerous times due to clashes between government forces
and the Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Maguindanao
Province is on Mindanao Island.
She said the first time they escaped “was around 2000
when former President Estrada declared an all-out war against the MILF”. Some
60,000 residents in Maguindanao Province were evacuated during the offensive.
Cramped in evacuation shelters for months and with food
scarce, she said, disease stalked them like vultures. “There were some who
died,” she said. Her four children had to stop going to school every now and
then. “I pity my children,” Usman said. “They are being deprived of their
childhood, not to mention the trauma induced by the displacement.”
Territorial disputes have stymied the signing of a peace
agreement between the government and the MILF. More IDPs were generated in
Mindanao when the government declared a “war on terror” in 2005 against the
terrorist Abu Sayyaf Group based on the southern islands of Sulu and Basilan
which ae art of Mindanao.
Frequent displacements
The experience of the frequently displaced residents of
the Kudal community is a familiar one in the Philippines. For four decades now,
internal conflict has wracked the nation with the government fighting communist
rebels and Muslim separatists. Millions of civilians have been caught in the
crossfire and displaced over the years in remote areas of Luzon, Visayas and
Mindanao islands.
DSWD data show that from 2001 to 2005 alone, 1.025
million people were identified as internally displaced persons (IDPs) due to
conflict. Another 483 were killed and 500 wounded during the same period.
Over 156,000 new IDPs in 2007
In 2006 there were 87,893 IDPs and by 15 December 2007
156,780 according to the DSWD. The latter figure excludes those who are
currently being displaced due to ongoing government offensives against the New
Peoples' Army (NPA).
Some agencies feel the numbers of IDPs reported are
considerably higher than official figures because many families who are forced
to evacuate are never officially recorded. Balay Rehabilitation Centre, a local
non-governmental organisation (NGO), estimates that over two million people
were displaced from 2001 to 2005.
The IDP situation “is so fluid” that it is difficult to
keep track of the numbers, according to Rico Salcedo, head of the UNHCR
Philippines office. “They move out and go back,” he said. “And then there are
others who have yet to return to their homes.”
Regardless of the precise numbers, Philippine Senator
Aquilino Pimentel laments that the country now ranks third - behind Burma and
Indonesia - in Southeast Asia in terms of IDPs. “It is a phenomenon that we
have ignored for so long,” Pimentel told IRIN. He stressed the need to pass
legislation to protect and institutionalise assistance to the IDPs.
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Children
displaced by fighting between the government and the Abu Sayyaf Group on Sulu
Island, southern Philippines. |
Children most affected
Analisa Ugay, lobby specialist for Balay, said children
are the most severely affected by internal displacement. “They comprise 40-60
percent of total IDPs,” she told IRIN. “The trauma of war may leave a lasting
impact on their development.” Officially, there is no breakdown of IDPs based
on age or sex.
The DWSD’s disaster fund budget for 2007 amounts to only
P192 million (about US$4.2 million). Of this amount, a mere P7.27 million
(about US $161,500) was allocated to IDPs. The total amount in 2006 was only
P3.73 million (about $82,000). Government intervention is largely limited to
the provision of relief goods and materials for the temporary shelter of IDPs.
Ugay laments that “the government seems apathetic to the
plight of the IDPs.” She also believes the NPA and the MILF should also take
the blame: “They should share the responsibility because these displaced
civilians are located in their controlled territory.”
Community-based solutions
Some agencies are working on community-based solutions
for peace. Serge Villena, programme associate for the UN Development Programme
(UNDP)-Philippines’s crisis prevention and protection recovery unit, said
“empowering the IDPs by capacitating them as active players in the maintenance
of peace” may mitigate the plight of IDPs. Villena said a second phase of a UNDP
project, Stride-Mindanao, (Stride standing for Strengthening Response to
Internal Displacement) is being developed that “seeks to capacitate community
leaders to hold dialogue between the warring parties” to help prevent conflict.
There are small successes. Ugay of Balay told IRIN
community leaders in some areas in ARMM have been able to prevent clashes
“because they took it upon themselves to preserve peace in their area.” Ugays
says: “They declared their areas zones of peace and they opened communication
lines between the warring parties.”
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