GPH, MILF peace panels show solidarity with typhoon victims

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Peace brokers of the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) were elated with the outpouring of support from Moro communities for typhoon victims in the Visayas.

The two panels, in a joint statement, also expressed solidarity with communities affected by the deadly typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) onslaught.

“Disasters often result to the disruption of peace, the destruction of property, and the breakdown of law and order,” the GPH and MILF panels said in a communique emailed by the Mindanao Press Bureau of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process.

The two panels said man-made disasters, such as armed violence, also cause devastation and loss of lives.

“It is, thus, a moral responsibility for all to give maximum importance to protection of life and the right to live in a peaceful and humane society,” the two panels stated in their joint statement of sympathy with typhoon victims in the Visayas.

Typhoon Yolanda “is a reminder,” a call for unity among all people, irrespective of cultural identities and political convictions, to face boldly these hardships and work together to mitigate, if not prevent, future disasters, the two peace panels pointed out.

Residents of Marawi City, meanwhile, have positively been responding to a local 'piso-piso' collection campaign by cause-oriented groups and peace advocacy outfits, said Samira Gutoc, a former sectoral representative to the 24-seat Regional Legislative Assembly in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Marawi City is a component area of ARMM, which also covers all of the city’s neighbouring towns in Lanao del Sur.

“We have been seeing Maranaws from all walks of life shell out money to help sustain the rehabilitation of typhoon-ravaged communities in the Visayas,” said Gutoc, now a full-time peace advocate involved in various humanitarian projects.

Civil society organizations in Marawi City and Lanao del Sur, local officials and peace-advocacy groups jointly launched early this week the 'Oplan Tabang Visayas' in a bid to pool their relief efforts together.

The inter-agency, multi-sectoral initiative has a makeshift monetary collection center inside the campus of the Mindanao State University in Marawi City. 

The administration of the university, which is Mindanao’s biggest state-run school, has also been helping push the objectives of the relief campaign forward.

Gutoc said different Moro organizations have also been collecting 'malong,' a traditional protective outfit resembling a sack with open hemlines, also used as a blanket, from Meranaw families, to be donated to displaced residents of Visayas.

Gutoc said Meranaw folks in Marawi City and Lanao del Sur are grateful to the local Catholic community, led by Fr. Chito Suganob, and the Christian members of local police units, and public school teachers, for helping in the relief efforts.