[The village of Lantad – a sitio in Barangay Kibanban, Balingasag, Misamis Oriental – has been quiet for sometime now. Lately, however, there have been skirmishes between the communist rebels and government soldiers.

But the people of Lantad, who have witnessed the violence from the ’80s up to the ’90s as the battleground of the two warring forces, now simply want peace to prevail in their area.

This was the clear clamor of the community during a dialogue conducted right in Lantad on May 24-25, 2011. The purpose of the dialogue, which was called for because of the recent skirmishes, was to discuss Lantad’s present context, identify immediate and long-term plans and some possible partnership initiatives.

With open and honest discussions, the stakeholders came with a concerted analysis of the peace and conflict situation. The leaders in the community themselves had declared that their community should be free of the violence between the CPP-NPA and the military. Thus they have requested both parties to leave their community in peace.

After the long neglect of the government, until the present provincial administration took over in 2004, much have been done for the development of the said barangay, especially for Sitio Lantad which was a strong rebel hub then. The roads were built, electricity was set up, cooperatives were organized, barangay development plans were formulated by the community, schools were founded. In fact, last March, the first set of students in the elementary level graduated finally.

In 2006, Balay Mindanaw helped facilitate the barangay peace and development plans through a participatory rural appraisal workshop. It was undertaken for the community to be involved in analyzing their situation and try to provide some solutions to their needs.

In the recent dialogue, Balay Mindanaw helped facilitate the community-level conversation among leaders of the Higaunon tribe, barangay officials, government heads from the town and province of Misamis Oriental. The Provincial Peace and Order Council (PPOC) initiated these local peace talks as part of its continuing initiative and support to help build peace in the province. Also included in the discourse were the civil society groups whose representatives come from the media, the Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro, the youth and other NGOs.

Following is the article highlighting how peace was achieved in Lantad, published in BMFI’s book, “Soldiers for Peace: A Collection of Peacebuilding Stories in Mindanao.”]

	The Lantad community with some Balay Mindanaw staff. Photo: Bobby Timonera

Way back in the 1980s, the village of Lantad was a model of governance. Problem was, it was the showcase not of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines, but of the National Democratic Front (NDF) and the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA).

Lantad, populated mostly by Higaunon indigenous people, is situated in a valley blessed with fertile soil that is ideal for farming. It is part of Barangay Kibanban of the municipality of Balingasag in Misamis Oriental. It is only 25 kilometers away from the present highway, but back in the 1980s, it was virtually impenetrable because there were no roads then. The village sat amidst a rugged mountainous terrain.

Because of the almost total support of the residents, Lantad became the seat of a regional government of the communist insurgency. This is according to Teodoro Sabugaa, the provincial social welfare and development officer of Misamis Oriental who once had ties in the underground movement.

“The joke was, in Lantad, even the bees were considered as masa (term for NPA supporter),” seconded Abel Jose Moya, who was once a communist cadre in Lantad. Moya is now a reformed peace advocate in neighboring Iligan City. But the joke, he stresses, stemmed from an actual event – when the military staged a massive assault against the rebels in Lantad in the late 1980s, honey bees attacked them. Or so the story goes.

It was here where the CPP-NPA’s Front Committee 4B-North Central Mindanao once reigned for about a decade. They were so in control of the community that they even issued land titles.

Fast forward to the present day – Lantad has become a model of what could happen when the government, the military, and other stakeholders work together to bring peace and development to a community.

How did it happen?

Maybe it didn’t help the military when, fresh from martial law, soldiers acted like kings reigning over the Higaunon people.

“They were so abusive, terrorizing us all the time, shouting at us,” Paquito Da-ao, the barangay chairman, recalls of his childhood days in Lantad. Now 33, he said he could have joined the NPA, too, had he stayed in Lantad during his youth. Fortunately for him, his father decided to bring the family down from the mountains so the children could go to school.

His father-in-law and the village’s tribal chief, Bruno A. Lindahay, had even more reasons to vent anger towards the military. In 1984, he was captured for his involvement in the CPP-NPA even though he was then the incumbent barangay chairman. “They tortured me. They repeatedly punched me and hit me with the barrel of their guns. They forced me to eat burnt rice and stuffed my mouth with a hundred chili peppers. They burned my skin. They hogtied me and hanged me by the church.”

A boy grazes the family's cows at Lantad. Photo: Bobby Timonera

But despite the horror of their past encounters with the military, Lindahay and Da-ao bear no grudges against the military now. They are so thankful of the soldiers, praising the uniformed men for their help in improving the community.

“That was in the past, and I have totally forgiven them now,” Lindahay said, noting a dramatic change in the military’s attitude toward the people these past few years. “They are polite, they help us in our livelihood, they help us repair the roads, they would contribute money when we do our tribal rituals, and they even donated P50,000 when we had to do expansion work for our chapel,” added the tribal leader who also attended an OP Kors! training tailored for communities.

Lantad residents now clamor for constant military presence to prevent the NPA from gaining foothold once more in their now peaceful village, said Balingasag Mayor Alexis S. Quina.

Some of their Civilian Armed Auxiliaries (CAAs, the paramilitary members of the Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Unit or CAFGU), like Alberto Paquin, were NPA members. But Paquin, a native of Lantad, has been re-integrated into the community.

The team leader of the Army’s unit in Lantad is Cpl. Rajan Banin of the 8th Infantry Battalion’s Charlie Company. He is a mild-mannered Tausug who has undergone Balay Mindanaw’s Operation Peace Course (OP Kors!), an extensive training on conflict management and community relations. “We see to it that we go out every day to talk to the people and check out if they have problems,” he said from his base on a hill overlooking the village.

“Lantad was vulnerable to the CPP-NPA because no government presence could be felt there,” said Vice Gov. Norris Babiera. “We knew all along that a military approach is not the answer; we had to provide economic opportunities, too,” he added.

When Gov. Oscar Moreno took over the reins of the provincial government in 2004, he set out to win over Lantad.

It used to be that the Provincial Peace and Order Council (PPOC) was composed only of representatives from the local government units, the Army and the police. Now it includes people from the various government line agencies and non-government organizations to better address community issues. Balay Mindanaw’s Ariel C. Hernandez sits there as co-chairman.

“The military is thankful that there are more members in the PPOC, so they won’t be left on their own attending to the people’s needs in Lantad,” said Babiera.

Among the provincial government’s priority projects was the building of roads all the way to the middle of Lantad in 2006 to open up opportunities to the people. At that time, Lantad could be reached only through narrow dirt roads which are best suited for horses and carabaos.

According to Lindahay, before the road was built, they could not bring their agricultural produce to the market. Their sick would die on the way to the hospital. The teachers had difficulty coming to school such that they could only hold classes three days a week instead of five. The military and the police seldom visited the place to provide security for the residents.

While the road leading to Lantad may still be so bad by most people’s standards, what with boulders and mud in the middle of the road, it dramatically opened up access for this community that had long suffered neglect in delivery of basic services. For the residents of Lantad, this is already a welcome improvement from their previous dirt road. Habalhabals (motorcycles with extension seats), even though usually overloaded, could now bring them down to the lowlands where they could sell their agricultural produce or buy items not found in the village. Occasionally, 4x4 vehicles pass by, its passengers stopping every now and then to take pictures of the beautiful scenery or pick beautiful wild sunflowers that abound by the roadside.

Various agencies have extended aid and services to Lantad by way of this road. Among them is the Department of Agrarian Reform that assisted in the formation and sustainability of a community cooperative. The cooperative now helps oversee the farmers planting banana, peanut, abaca, coffee, vegetables and many more. The Spanish government provided solar power energy to the homes. A school building was built, along with a solar dryer for the farmers’ rice and corn, and an abaca stripper.