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Making neighborhoods safe, peaceful and orderly with community residents’ active participation
In January 2013, the Center for Man and Society proposed to government an integrated action plan specially designed to mold a culture of cooperation and positive morale between the residents in a community and their law enforcement officers. The action plan, suggested to the Philippine National Police derives information inputs from both the public and private sector through the building and utilization of unique social infrastructures. The significance of the action plan is that it includes handling of macro issues that are of monumental significance and relevance to the Philippine National Police.
Parameters
- The establishment at the regional level of community relations group units.
- Enhancing the PNP Image as a vital driving force to undertake this action plan.
- Establishing social mechanisms and software at grassroots level.
- Holding the Community Security, Safety, Peace and Order Summit at the end of the year in 2013. The holding of the special Summit on Community Security, Safety, Peace and Order is designed to bring together stakeholders in constructively critiquing and enhancing the running program to establish social mechanisms and install software to uphold peace and order, safety and stability at the grassroots level.
Targeted Outcomes
- Enlarged safe spaces in as many areas of the country
- Executed tripartite agreement between PNP, homeowners’ groups or local communities and the services sector for community crime reduction.
- Activated a full function network to provide force multipliers for effective civil relations during local and national crisis as well as fortuitous events like natural calamities and disasters
- Replicated these networking activities for the purpose of the electoral exercise as well as for other subnational and national significant events
- Assembled important stakeholders to critique and improve the plan to bring about community peace, order, safety and stability and allow the people themselves to take the lead in the process.
Time Frame. The duration and the time to implement the plan will be from 2013 to July 2016 — at the end of the term of His Excellency Benigno Simeon Aquino III, President of the Republic of the Philippines.
Administration. Limited special activities to be undertaken:
Signing Tripartite Agreement. This distinctive covenant, while very specific and targeted in scope, will be the cornerstone of a cooperative venture between the PNP, a service provider, the homeowners’ groups and / or local communities and service provider.
The role of PNP is to provide the spearhead for the action plan. This entails building social infrastructures and embed applicable software (techniques/tactics) to reduce crime, potential terror attacks, political violence, and acts of anarchy, among other similar occurrences. The key players on one side in this undertaking are homeowners’ groups all over the country or their counterpart local villages not covered by organized homeowners’ organizations. On the other side, the service provider is tasked with the social infrastructure building and putting in place needed software.
The PNP’s positioning in the resulting social infrastructure, will be its current post as keeper of the peace and order in the community and in Philippine society. On the other hand, the homeowners’ groups and local communities will be the key information sources of the PNP, while the service provider component will be the constructor or builder of the infrastructures.
Special research-communication audit. The value of the PNP HOTLINE 117 is in the database that it will be able to generate. Together with the database from other units, special audit of selected target individuals / units for evaluation of current communications by selected parties as well as the involvement of members of the service therein, in relation to selective high profile issues.
Evaluating the action plan. The following method for measuring results will take the form of:
- monthly report on work in progress;
- formalized reports for presentation at staff meetings;
- periodic briefings of the higher authorities
- year-end summary for the annual report; and,
- a national assessment Summit on Community Security, Safety Peace and Order at the end of the year 2013.
A Paradigm for Grassroots Based Peace
In January 2013, Center for Man and Society (Centre di Humanes et Societas, Inc. – CHS) proposed an action plan for community-based security, safety, peace and orderto the government. From February to April 2013, painstaking efforts were undertaken to foster the adoption of the action plan.
The present model conceived and being propagated in advanced societies centers on “increasing safe spaces.”
On the other hand, a project undertaken during the early 70s that was backed by the United States of America’s National Security Council undertook a social program to promote peace in the neighborhoods through the concept of full community involvement and participation.
This program by the US government was a resounding success and was achieved through the training of residents in a community by a composite of trainors on law enforcement and highly capable sociologists-community organizers.
In the Philippines, a parallel of this community organizing design was originally espoused by the group of Ms. Corazon J. Soliman, Atty. Hector Soliman, Mr. Rolando B. Modina, Ms. Charo Modina, Ms. Karina David, Solomon P. Botictic through the social development (NGO) community in the late 1980s. European AidNGOs were the target donors for this design.
This parallel design of the Ms. Soliman of the NGO community centered on conflict-endangered zones (barangays, cluster of barangays, components of towns and cities) where there is war or extreme politically-rooted hostilities. The US model focused more on the neighborhood not afflicted by war but threatened every day by minor conflicts and imperiled by the visiting of newbie or hardened offenders ready to commit crime, or succumb to killing fellow humans during the act.
In the present paradigm, it was envisaged that a combined effort designed for both war-torn communities as well as villages unaffected by warfare while threatened by injurious intent and malfeasance or high crime. As an assessment and year-end culmination of activities, it was suggested to hold a community safety, peace and order summit around the end of each year.
At the same summit, for incentives to all to continue working for community-based peace and order, it is envisioned the recognition of individuals who have contributed their precious time, talent and resources for the promotion of peace and order in our Philippine communities and our simple neighborhoods. For this purpose, we resolve to acknowledge with immense Filipino pride and honor, the Golden Olive Branch Peace Award for promoting peace at the grassroots, in the community.
Golden Olive Branch Awards
The proposed prizes and awards under the Golden Olive Branch Awards are the shown below
1. Jose Rizal Award (Authors for Peace, Doctors for Peace)
2. Narciso Ramos Award (Diplomats for Peace)
3. Military Awards and Citations (Various Name Awards for Valor, Bravery in the pursuit of Peace)
4. Police Awards and Citations (Various Name Awards for Valor, Bravery in the pursuit of Peace)
5. F & AM Award (Special Philippine Jurisdiction Award – Youth for Peace)
6. Ronald Kelly Award (Filmmakers and Film Workers for Peace) in honor of the late Fernando Poe
7. Other Awards, Citations, Commendations and Grants (Scholarship grant, project funding)
For supporting, promoting the quest for peace in the grassroots, The Golden Olive Branch Award or Prize, to be bequeathed to our countrymen and women as well as non-Filipinos with the above named honors, pending the collaboration and cooperation of the affected parties concerned.
Local Philippine National Police and Armed Forces of the Philippines Update
European Pressphoto Agency
Students evacuate from a compound near where members of the Moro National Liberation Front occupied villages in Zamboanga City, southern Philippines on Monday. (Wall Street Journal)
Investigators of the local Philippine National Police through constant monitoring of the movements and strength of the MNLF armed group inside Zamboanga City declared that there are over one hundred elements of the Bangsa Moro secessionist movement inside the City.
Since the City of Zamboanga has been a haven for both Christians and Muslims alike, it is not totally impossible that some members of the Islamic community will simply change their attire and join or sign up with the MNLF at the siege area.
This dovetails with the report from the Armed Forces of the Philippines that there has been no significant reduction in the force strength of the MNLF in Zamboanga City owing to the fact that the members of the armed band that were captured are not from the siege area in Zamboanga. These MNLF fighters were fresh arrivals from Cotabato.
However, on the safe side, the military spokesman and the media consistently states that there are merely about fifty MNLF fighters remaining in Zamboanga City.
The reinforcements for the beleaguered MNLF fighters inside the City will continue to pour into the vicinity of Zamboanga del Norte and Zamboanga City. This means that if no settlement will be arrived at in the soonest possible time, the deaths and other casualties will mount to hundreds, then to thousands and could possibly reach the death toll during the protracted Muslim rebellion in the South of over one hundred thousand.
Old memories die hard and with the potential for high profile shaking up of the incumbent regime, the conflict in the Zamboanga Peninsula could possibly drag on for another few weeks. If it succeeds in doing so, the trouble could last another few months; if unresolved, it will become protracted and press on during the next few years. In the process, the neighboring states of Malaysia and Indonesia could be affected, whether because of their close ties and record of collaboration and cooperation with the local Islamic community or just because of their simple proximity to the Philippine archipelago.
Should the scenario actually happen, one of the disadvantaged will be the United States of America because of its long and deep involvement in the peace process between the Government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
The worst disadvantaged will be Zamboanga City.
Photo Gallery: Zamboanga When Will There Be Peace?
Photo Gallery: Zamboanga When Will There Be Peace?
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The Gold Olive Branch Award Project
GOLDEN OLIVE BRANCH AWARD OR PRIZE RECOGNITION AND AWARDS PROJECT
This a project to give recognition and incentive to those who gave major contributions to establishing and promoting peace and order, security and safety within the Philippine community (neighborhood, Sitio, Purok, Barangay, etc.).
Even those that had died or passed away are entitled to receive the prize posthumous, and all the benefits therefrom.
It is a project that to help promote among the youth the importance of working for community-based peace and order by granting scholarships to young high school students and providing grant funds for the education of children of posthumous awardees.
The following compose the initial Core Members of the Organizing Committee:
Golden Olive Branch Award or Prize Recognition and Awards Project
Mario C. Garcia
Zacarias T. Aquino
Luisito L. Morante
Ferdinand M. Cabrera
Ernest Joseph P. Patanao
Antonio Rosario C. Catral
Alan S. Taruc
Philip Anthony P. Placer
Ramil L. Jumarang
Ruben G. Apostol
Solomon P. Botictic
Why a peace award in the Philippines
Reasons for a Peace Award
The Philippines has the longest running communist insurgency in the whole world
The Muslim secessionist rebellion has been going on in Mindanao for more than forty years or close to fifty years. The historical rift between Islamic people of Mindanao and the rest of the country as well as colonizers of the Philippines has been existent for many centuries, whereas in the beginning, the central core of governance of the populations in several major islands emanated from Mindanao even as the indigenous people of this country already had their own culture and simple system of government.
Finally, achieving peace and sustaining it within a community might be easy as it sounds, but it definitely is not.
Notwithstanding the secessionist acts of our Islamic brothers in Mindanao and the existence of rebellion in hot spot areas all over the country where communist insurgents cannot simply leave the masses alone nor the government forces pursuing them not bother the simple residents of communist-infested localities, there is a need to work for peace even in the areas where there is no secession or where there are no red communist fighters.
To spur individuals and institutions to work for peace in the community is not for other’s advantage except one’s own, one’s own neighbors and one’s own village. With the exception of extending one’s efforts to work for peace in broader areas, actions leading toward community-based security, safety, peace and order is simply for one’s own good and one’s immediate family and circle. Still, human nature and certain ethics prevents people from working for causes that do not yield profit, affluence and fame.
That makes it difficult to work for the peace, even if only for one’s own community and one’s own neighbors.
Therefore, it is fitting to reward work that fosters this peace, serenity and tranquility in one’s the very vicinity of one’s own home.
Who will get the Golden Olive Branch Award for peace in Mindanao
At this stage in the Mindanao conflict, those closely identified directly or indirectly with the first group of the band of armed men who tried to raise the MNLF flag in Zamboanga City, particularly those that financed the operation, will be disqualified from the award.
Anyone from Zamboanga Peninsula or anyone from outside the 9th Philippine Administrative Region who sincerely contributed to the resolution of the military stand-off in Zamboanga City will qualify and deserve to receive the Golden Olive Branch Award.
Confusion at the War Front
Who is this man? He is known as Atty. Emmanuel Fontanilla. He calls himself the Official Spokesman of the Moro National Liberation Front. When Hon. Sec. Manuel Roxas III visited Zamboanga, he was interviewed by media together with the honorable secretary. What is his real role and standing in the MNLF? Does Chairman Misuari Nur owe his life to this man who lays claim to MNLF as if it was his own turf? Presumably, he must have been baptized into Islam; even if so, what real clout does he have with that mammoth organization of armed fighters that even with firearms they would not lift a finger to shut his mouth? (Photo credit: Borneo Insider)
Feed from Rebus 21
Despite the danger of escalating tensions towards full-scale war, certain shady individuals are goading both parties enmeshed in the hostilities and appear to be the ones who organized the hostage-taking as well as the burning of entire villages in Zamboanga.
Captured persons alleged to be members of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) confessed to interrogators that they were not ordered to participate in a war.
Before jumping off from Basilan into Zamboanga-bound bancas (small sea vessels commonly used by fishermen), they were told to support the prayer rally – educational assembly or teach-in against the pork barrel at the EDSA Shrine in Ortigas by holding a similar rally in Zamboanga City. Read more from here.
So much for the MNLF Spokesman saying that the rebels fighting government forces are fake MNLF fighters. After a few days, upon the arrival of Sec. Manuel Roxas and Sec. Voltaire Gazmin, the Spokesman’s brain experienced a turn around and his mouth was shooting off statements to the effect that Chairman Nur Misuari owned up to the planning of the hostage-taking and now the burning of villages in Zamboanga City.
All is not fair in love and war.
Confusion at the battle front
Feed from Rebus 21
Despite the danger of escalating tensions towards full-scale war, certain shady individuals are goading both parties enmeshed in the hostilities and appear to be the ones who organized the hostage-taking as well as the burning of entire villages in Zamboanga.
Captured persons alleged to be members of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) confessed to interrogators that they were not ordered to participate in a war.
Before jumping off from Basilan into Zamboanga-bound bancas (small sea vessels commonly used by fishermen), they were told to support the prayer rally – educational assembly or teach-in against the pork barrel at the EDSA Shrine in Ortigas by holding a similar rally in Zamboanga City. Read more from here.
There is hope that the people of Zamboanga themselves and the entire MNLF will do something about this, or else they are going to be the sore losers that many individuals now are painting them to be.
Fouth Generation (4G) Warfare Mindanao
Feed from Rebus 21:
Events in Western Mindanao at the present time all point towards escalating fourth generation war.
4G warfare is defined as early as in 1989 as amorphous (without shape and specific definition), stateless, borderless, non-conventional war. It is also timeless. For demonstration, the overly protracted conflict between Israel and selected Middle East neighbors have overblown into 4G warfare. However, its worst feature is that 4G warfare crosses all lines of demarcation: it does not distinguish between soldier-combatants and civilians. This form of warfare shows its antagonists engage in all sorts of unimaginable acts and does not follow the Geneva Conventions on agreed upon humanitarian considerations during wartime.
Although some military historians and analysts refuse to accept the 4G warfare (as well as the much-propounded 5th Generation warfare – 5G) doctrine, arguing that both the 4G and 5G concepts of warfare are weak in that they are governed by their own aspects of conventionality it is still in order to recognize the burgeoning threat to life and property, to the economic well-being of a social enclave or a country of minor conflict rapidly escalating into bigger war. Read more here.
Bandera Uno's Bulletin 