Bad news from Mindanao

Last week, the front pages of our newspapers were full of bad news from Mindanao. The dark clouds of war have once more created a state of high anxiety among the people there, Christian and Muslim. Things were not made any better by a government that didn’t seem to know how to handle the explosive situation. Now, we are also faced with the possibility of armed Christian groups ready to defend themselves from the effects of a “peace treaty” whose terms they are unable to live with.

But the worse news to come out of Mindanao last week was the very untimely death of Datu Toto Paglas who succumbed to a bad case of meningitis at a very young age of 48. The extremely “sayang” thing about Datu Paglas’s death is that it happened at a time when we need him most to help defuse the Mindanao situation.

I have seen what he has done in his hometown and I believe that he has both the means and the personality to duplicate his successful peace model in other parts of Mindanao. A former commander of the secessionist MILF himself, Datu Toto realized that more powerful than armed rebellion is a successful business plan that uplifts the economic condition of his people.

Toto won the peace in his small part of Maguindanao by making the land productive and providing markets for the produce. Paglas town was known as no man’s land until Datu Toto went into partnership with investors and developed one of the country’s most productive banana plantations. It is now a major exporter of bananas and I saw myself how the fruits of success are being enjoyed by the people in his town.

What exactly did Datu Toto do to produce his successful venture? He provided the land, cracked down on violence and crime, clearing the way for construction of good roads and an irrigation system. The Asian Wall Street Journal, in an article about his success story, has a curious quote from the datu: “We can never improve things here through the barrel of a gun.”

Indeed, the Journal interviewed former MILF fighters who expressed no desire to return to fighting. And so did we. I was with a group of journalists who wandered into Datu Paglas’s domain a few years ago and we talked to former MILF commanders who were then happily overseeing men working in the vast banana plantation instead of ambushing military patrols.

In a column I wrote on it June 13, 2003, I quoted Rolly Dy, agri business specialist of the University of Asia and the Pacific who happens to be from Mindanao, who commented that “for the first time in their lives, thousands of our Muslim brothers and sisters are getting paid weekly. It is a success because of an enlightened Muslim leader by the name of Toto Paglas. Majority of the workers are connected with MILF but they don’t want war. This battle of hearts and mind must move fast. The radicals are converting the young Muslims in many places.”

The banana business has grown so much so that new service businesses are also thriving, filtering through the rest of Mindanao’s small economy. The datu has set up trucking, security and gas station businesses to serve the plantation. Jobs have opened up for local residents and the town’s new bank offers loans to other aspiring entrepreneurs.

But the “model” of Toto Paglas, that uses business to win the peace, has been proven as well on an even larger scale in that hotbed of conflict: Israel. The current online edition of Businessweek carries the story of Daniel Lubetzky and his “not-only-for-profit” business that has created profitable joint ventures with Palestinians and Israelis.

As related by Businessweek, the social entrepreneur Daniel Lubetzky is the Mexican-born son of a Holocaust survivor who founded PeaceWorks, a successful global business that promotes peace through commercial ventures among Israelis, Palestinians, Egyptians, Turks, Indonesians, and Sri Lankans. “Lubetzky had created a viable business model (in operation since 1994) that brings Arabs and Israelis together while plowing profits into peacemaking efforts.”

While in Israel on a fellowship, Lubetzky discovered a tasty sundried tomato spread but found out the company behind it was going out of business. “The owner was getting their glass jars from Portugal and their tomatoes from Italy,” Lubetzky told Businessweek. Fairly quickly he realized he had found a test case for his fledgling theory: what if the company sourced the jars in Egypt, while getting their raw products from Turkey and Palestine?

Today, Businessweek reports, spreads under the labels Moshe & Ali’s and Meditalia (both joint ventures established by PeaceWorks between Israelis and Palestinians) are sold in stores across the US, including Whole Foods. More recently, PeaceWorks introduced Bali Spice, a line of Asian sauces manufactured by women’s cooperatives made up of Muslims, Christians, and Buddhists in Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

“We are using market forces to achieve the goal of peace and coexistence,” says Lubetzky. Having foes unite in business, he explains, works on three levels: First, it helps break down stereotypes; second, it creates an incentive to continue to work together; third, in doing so, it helps puts an end to regional violence and fundamentalism that feeds off despair.

That’s exactly what Datu Paglas found out too when the banana business started delivering economic benefits to his people in his corner of Maguindanao. It was such that they even had Israeli experts helping them in the plantation, and we were told, with the blessing of the Hashim Salamat who headed the MILF then. 

In fact, Datu Paglas was ready to share his experience with other Filipino Muslim leaders in Mindanao. I understand he was also starting to try out the concept for other produce, like asparagus. It was unfortunate that he lost when he sought the position of governor of ARMM in the last election. Datu Paglas could have been the long awaited leader of our Muslim brothers who actually had a vision and the track record to work for the economic redemption of his people.

Our Muslim brothers, like us Christians, have had the unfortunate knack of choosing leaders who squandered resources and lived high at the expense of the people. Too bad, but not unexpected, Ate Glue chose to support the traditional Muslim politicians who merely lorded it over the people while they wallow in poverty. Now, it is too late, because Datu Toto Paglas is no more.

Still, we can’t help hoping the right Muslim leader who has the spirit and vision of Datu Toto will come along and seek a new way towards peace in Mindanao through entrepreneurship. Hopefully, we will soon find one such leader who like Lubetzky and Datu Toto, offers “an enticing vision, one that combines traditional profit-making models with a social bottom line.”

It may seem the root of the problem we now have in Mindanao is social or even political. But it is proving to be economic more than anything else. Unless this reality is addressed, the way Datu Toto Paglas did in his time, we can have a thousand initialed peace agreements and peace will continue to be elusive.

The negotiating panels of our government and the MILF wasted too much time on the political aspects of a peace agreement with all the contentious issues that will defy resolution unless economic security is first felt by the ordinary people in the region, Muslim and Christian alike.

To the family of Datu Toto, I am sure they will be comforted by the rich legacy of peace and prosperity he left behind. It is now up to them to carry on as if he didn’t leave this world so abruptly and so prematurely… before he can spread the good he has started to the rest of restless Mindanao.

Tourist in China

An American tourist is visiting China. After visiting all the tourist attractions he decides to inquire about the people and asks his guide: “How large is the population here?”

“Around 1.5 billion” — the guide answers.

American, After a short pause: “So, what else do you do here?”

Boo Chanco’s e-mail is [email protected]