Community approach to peacebuilding

Years back, we have established a consensus that our peacebuilding to be sustainable need to adopt the community approach. This has led to the adoption of the three-prong approach that speaks of a community based peacemaking; community based peacekeeping and community based peacebuilding. A community based approach has many strains. Essentially it is to establish a good relation with your neighbors. Neighbors refer to religious communities other than your own. This good relation will, in time, build a partnership based on common “stakeholdership” between and among religious communities. Neighborhood bears fruit in common actions for the benefits of the community like building farm to market roads or other local infrastructures. In rural communities, this common action is akin to our Bayanihan work in moving or building houses, digging canals or management of potable water, repairing local school and health facilities, etc. Nowadays, a community based approach requires developing local communities’ capacity for immediate humanitarian interventions across faith frontiers and boundaries. This refers to any actions that quell fire, provide shelters, food and clothing for refugees/displaced, accompaniment of the displaced to return to their home and assistance in the rebuilding of their homes and livelihood. There is the need to build the capacity of local leaders, especially religious and civic leaders as MEDIATORS. The local parish priest, pastor, Imam, school principal and teachers are natural peace mediators. It is a great challenge to harness these “occupational” qualities in peacebuilding and peacemaking at the grass root. More than ever, in the Philippines, there is the call to transform local churches, mosques, schools, convents and madaris as places of healing and reconciliation. These are actually ‘sacred‘ places where people, especially victims, can tell their stories, their pains and traumas. The ’sacred’ people in these places are also empowered to ’ritualize’ forgiveness, show care for the victims and become instruments of restoration and indemnification. Harnessing these community potentials for peace and healing remains a great task. No doubt, religious people, health workers and teachers can serve as a ‘force’ to move forward in peacemaking and peacebuilding. Their voices need to be heard as strong call for cessation of hostilities and care for the victims. They can use their moral suasion to pressure the warring parties to go back to the negotiating table. Definitely, there is the need for greater involvement of the communities and their leaders in peacemaking and peacebuilding, especially in building consensus on issues that continue to divide our peoples. They can also serve as bridges between individuals and communities in the discussion of any peace agreement or any political settlement. This is the meaning of a community based peacemaking and peace building. The peace process is far too important to be left alone to the adversaries on either side to work out. It is the concern of all stakeholders and the people. In fact this is the basis for citizens’ active participation in the peace process. After all, it is the core rationale for the phenomenon of peace advocacy and activism. In the country, particularly in Southern Philippines, there is the need to build and institutionalize mechanisms for citizens’ participation in peacemaking and peacebuilding as well as in peacekeeping. This includes among others, coming up with people’s agenda for peace, popular consultations, civil society’s participation in the actual peace talks, and community based and people–initiated monitors of the actual implementation of the agreements between the “warring” parties. Empowering people and communities is not simply calling them to the streets to become the ‘voice’ of dissent or support for a set of political demands that they hardly understand beyond the rhetoric of their leadership. Empowering people and communities is based on the belief that the people and the communities are sovereign and they need to exercise sovereignty not only during elections or when they come to streets like in EDSA 1 and EDSA 2. They should continue to exercise this by intervening in actual governance through many and varied institutional mechanisms as well as by engaging in non-government and no-party initiatives. But for this to happen, they need basic self-organization and more institutional arrangements like people’s councils, citizens-arm, consumers’ watch, etc. Ultimately, they are the real stakeholders in their communities, thus they must also address economic issues such as management, ownership and distribution of the basic resources and issues affecting their environment. At the core of the question is the reality that political empowerment of people and communities essentially includes economic empowerment that uplift the living condition and livelihood of the masses. In some sector, empowerment is understood as the dynamic process of transferring political and economic power from one center to another and/or the creation of new centers of power complimentary to or in competition with the traditional centers. Translated into more understandable language, it means building a strong civil society or the self-organized section of society. This refers to voluntary associations freely formed by citizens not for profit but to advance group interests or the common good. They are known to us as the politically active popular sector: non-government organizations (NGOs), people’s organizations (POs), cause-oriented groups and sectoral and multi-sectoral political formations. Collectively, they form the organized base of citizen’s movements pushing a reform agenda into the mainstream of public policy or re-organizing society around a progressive alternative vision.