Op/Ed: WAYWARD AND FANCIFUL: Soldier, farmer, peace builder

Op/Ed piece in MindaNews (Dec 13): WAYWARD AND FANCIFUL: Soldier, farmer, peace builder (Gail Ilagan)

[The following are several paragraphs excerpted from a highly lauditory opinion piece on LTC Kris Mortela, the former Training Unit commander and Operations chief of the 10th Infantry Division, now Commander of the 67th Infantry Battalion and concurrent Commander of the Incident Command Post (ICP) in the municipality of Baganga, Davao Oriental province.]

.....At the 67IB headquarters then, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the various academic expertise and technical skills of the soldiers were tapped as appropriate. Unit thrusts allowed them to employ their knowledge of agriculture, engineering, education, social work, forestry, and animal husbandry to teach other soldiers how to set up a demo farm in the camp so that they can train civilians. Before Typhoon Pablo walloped Baganga and their camp to the ground, 67IB troops were engaged in friendly competition over who had the best vegetable plot.

Kris encouraged his soldiers to learn skills alien to traditional soldiery. The enlisted men’s cooperative was earning from the piggery, poultry, vegetable garden, and vermiculture patch in the camp. Some of the troops were helping farmers prepare documents to register their cooperatives and people’s organizations. The soldiers were also providing support for budget planning in both the barangay and municipal government levels.

There was always something that the unit was doing in partnership with the government agencies and the civilian sectors. The 67IB mediated people’s access to government programs and donor support. Kris would even invite our center to provide inputs for the youth leadership training sessions his unit jointly sponsored with the LGUs. This became a venue for some of our students to engage the youth in Baganga and other neighboring towns.

Kris said that when people in the grassroots improve their income, they put food on the table, make improvements to their houses, and send their children to school. They earn. They gain self-respect. They become inclined to participate in community concerns and keep the peace. They’d rather not take up arms when they find that taking up the hoe instead would allow them to be better parents to their children and to sleep soundly at night.

Ten years ago, for a soldier to make this radical shift in thinking would have made Mortela unpopular in the military. He credits the influence of retired general Raymundo Ferrer and former 1003rd Infantry Brigade commander Lysander Suerte for resonating with his views on human security and people-centered approaches. Indeed, even before the implementation of the Internal Peace and Security Plan sought to introduce this paradigm shift in the military establishment, these were ideas for peace building that Ding, Dodoy, and Kris batted around in dialogue with civil society groups and the academe in Mindanao......

http://www.mindanews.com/mindaviews/2012/12/13/wayward-and-fanciful-soldier-farmer-peace-builder/