Tambuling Batangas Publication May 15-21, 2019 Issue | Page 6

Peace...
Advertisements
mula sa pahina 8..
including former comrades, to instill fear among the
people?” he said.

Meanwhile, Don Nicart, a former student activist
who romanticized the national democratic movement in
the Philippines during his youth said, “They (rebels) are
simply repeating what they did to Conrado Balweg and
leaders of the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army (CPLA)
who entered into an agreement with the government. They
feared that Balweg’s decision would create a bandwagon
and weaken their so-called armed revolution.”

Yes for Peace–Bayanihan ng Bayan is a non-
government initiated peace education, advocacy and
mobilization movement born in the University of
the Philippines in 1988, and eventually supported by
government institutions.
Among others, it seeks to assert the Filipino people’s
human right to peace and the full play of democracy;
the conduct of open, transparent and inclusive peace
talks, at the national or local levels or both, here in the
Philippines; and the pro-active and collective participation
of the people in the identification, planning and effective
and efficient implementation of development projects and
livelihood programs.
The Sectoral Unification, Capability Building,
Empowerment and Mobilization Cluster of the National
Task Force to End the Local Communist Armed Conflict
(NTF-ELCAC) recommended the adoption, refinement,
and the facilitation of the implementation of Yes For
Peace as a whole-of-nation undertaking. The cluster
recommendation was incorporated into the national plan
submitted to and approved by President Rodrigo Roa
Duterte on April 15, 2019.

Earlier, Duterte wrote in a message to YFP-
BB, “I recognize this noble undertaking of Yes for
Peace–Bayanihan ng Bayan because it promotes a
newfound culture of harmony and cooperation among our
communities and across our regions. I am also glad that
many government agencies and partners are participating
in this project… “Together, let us show our solidarity in
effecting real and lasting change in our society.”

The President subsequently issued Executive
Order No. 70, series of 2018, which institutionalized the
“whole-of-nation approach” as a government policy for
the attainment of inclusive and sustainable peace.

Drawing from EO No. 70, National Security
Adviser Hermogenes Esperon, Jr., Vice-Chairman of
the NTF-ELCAC said, “the government shall heretofore
prioritize and harmonize the delivery of basic services and
social development packages in conflict-affected areas
and vulnerable communities, facilitate societal inclusivity,
and ensure active participation of all sectors of society in
pursuit of the country’s peace agenda.” (PIA)
MMDA Headquarters post-a
NCRPO, handa na para sa
eleksyon quake inspection
By Jimmyley E. Guzman
LUNGSOD QUEZON -- Nakahanda na ang National
Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) para sa darating
na eleksyon sa Lunes, May 13, 2019.

Ayon kay NCRPO chief Major General
Guillermo Eleazar, handa na ang buong puwersa
ng NCRPO na magbibigay seguridad sa iba’t ibang
presinto, canvassing centers at iba pang lugar sa Metro
Manila.

Inatasan ni Eleazar ang mga police district
directors ng Metro Manila upang mag monitor sa
kanilang mga areas of responsibilities.

Ayon sa NCRPO chief magdadagdag sila ng
mga checkpoints at higit na paiigtingin ang police
visibility hanggang June 13.

Kamakailan, pinangunahan nina Philippine
National Police (PNP) chief General Oscar Albayalde,
NCRPO chief MGen Eleazar, Armed Forces of the
Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff General Benjamin
Madrigal, Jr. at Commission on Elections (COMELEC)
Commissioner Al Parreno ang send-off ceremony at
inter-faith prayer para sa darating na 2019 Midterm
Elections na ginanap sa Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City.

Samantala, nagpapaalala rin ang PNP sa
publiko hinggil sa ipapatupad na liquor ban simula
sa Linggo, May 12 hanggang May 13, 2019 bilang
bahagi ng security preparations at upang masiguro ang
mapayapa at maayos na halalan. (PIA InfoComm)
May 15-21, 2019
Money, guns, brides fuel cattle wars
UDIER, RUMBEK, South Sudan — Weak rays of
early morning sun seep through the smoke rising from
smoldering piles of dried dung, keeping flies away from
the precious cattle.

Children instinctively reach down for the white
ash, a natural mosquito repellent, and rub it on their skin
as women set to milking and men prepare for a long day
seeking pasture at the peak of the dry season.
The passing of centuries seems to have changed little in
the ebb and flow of life for herders in remote South Sudan,
whose cattle serve as a bank account and play a core role
in every aspect of life.

There has, however, been one devastating shift.

Instead of their traditional spears, cowherds now
carry automatic rifles that have transformed cattle raids,
a generations-old phenomenon, into massacres that have
unleashed brutal cycles of vengeance.

“It is good to have a weapon because it helps you
to protect the cattle,” said Puk Duoth, 25, a herder from a
camp outside the northeastern village of Udier.

While South Sudan’s elites signed a power-
sharing truce in September 2018, cattle raids have
worsened, highlighting the herculean task required to
resolve local conflicts in a society shattered by war.

According to the UN peacekeeping mission
UNMISS, 218 members of herder communities were
killed in January in tit-for-tat attacks — almost three times
the toll of 73 in the four months from October 2017 to
January 2018.

Observers blame a deadly cocktail of factors for
the rising body count: a breakdown of law and order in the
war-torn nation, an influx of guns and inflation in the bride
price — paid in cattle.
Cash cows

In these parts, cows are everything.

In the culture of the Nuer and Dinka peoples
— South Sudan’s largest herder communities — boys
are named after a favoured bull, and songs are written to
glorify the long-horned beasts.

“If you are sick, then the cow can be sold and
the money used for treatment,” says Beny Chuer, a Dinka
chief from Amading camp outside the central city of
Rumbek — one of the areas worst affected by raids and
revenge killings.

“If a mother dies leaving a small baby, that child
will live because a cow will be milked to feed it.”

Cattle is currency — each head worth about $500
(440 euros). The more a man owns, the more admiration
he garners.

“If you are sitting in a community meeting and
you are talking rubbish, but people know you have many
cows, you will be honored,” said Peter Machar, of the
NGO Saferworld working on local conflicts.

In his 1940 study of the Nuer people, British
anthropologist Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard found this
single-minded preoccupation frustrating in his research
efforts.

“I used sometimes to despair that I never
discussed anything with the young men but livestock and
girls and even the subject of girls led inevitably to that of
cattle,” he wrote.
Costly brides, rampant guns

“For us, a cow is the source of money,” said chief
Chuer, well over two meters (6 feet, 7 inches) tall — a
genetic legacy perhaps of tall women being viewed as
more valuable in herder communities.

He boasts that his tallest daughter earned him a
whopping 250 cows.

This is part of the cause of conflict, said Peter
Machar’s colleague Majok Mon, his own first name a
Dinka word for the markings on a bull.

Bride prices soared as donor money poured into
the country after independence from Sudan, allowing
politicians, military men and the well-connected to enrich
themselves and “get a lot of money” to pay for a wife, he
said.

The average price went up from about 20 head
of cattle to 100, in a country where the majority of people
follow the tradition.

Suddenly, many young men could not afford
to get married unless they raided cattle from other
communities.
Guns flooded the country between the war for
independence, achieved in 2011, and the internal conflict
that erupted two years later as President Salva Kiir and
rival Riek Machar fell out.

Both sides armed young herders and mobilized
them to fight, said Peter Machar.

As any semblance of law and order collapsed, the
warring also destroyed traditional systems, managed by
tribal chiefs, for settling feuds.

“What brought the issue of cattle raids is the
gun… if you don’t have a gun, then you will be monitored
slowly, slowly until you are shot and your cows taken, but
if you have your gun, then you can shoot” in defense, said
Chuer.
Out of control

While fighting has stopped in most of the country
as a result of the peace deal, this has changed nothing for
herder groups nursing long-standing grievances unrelated
to the national tug of war for power.

And with the attention elsewhere, armed herders
are launching increasingly deadly military-style attacks on
rival camps, with women and children among the victims.
The reality in these remote communities “is very far from
what is happening with the elites in Juba,” United Nations
special envoy David Shearer told AFP.

A report on the “militarisation” of cattle raiding
in South Sudan, published last year in the Journal of
International Humanitarian Action, warned that leaders
like Kiir and Riek Machar, “having undermined the
traditional mechanisms that once governed violence in
order to further their individual political interests, no
longer have control over these raiders either.”

All these factors bode ill for prospects of peace
in a country whose youth has known nothing but conflict.

“This generation were born in the war and grew
up in the war… they are a majority and they are the ones
who are fighting, so how do we really transform that?”
said Mon.
Energy Task Force Election ensures adequate
energy supply on May 13
QUEZON CITY -- The Energy Task Force Election (ETFE)
met with the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) on
Thursday (May 2) to ensure continuous and adequate energy
supply during the National and Local Elections on 13 May
2019,

DOE Undersecretary and EFTE Chairperson
Alexander S. Lopez and Director Teopisto E. Elnas, Jr.,
chief, Election and Barangay Affairs Department, Comelec
led the discussion to ensure that preparations are in place and
ready seven days prior to elections.

Lopez
underscored
the
importance
of
communication and coordination before, during and after
elections and to ensure that all contingency plans are in place
specifically on energy facilities and other critical assets.

He also pointed out the importance of close
coordination with the security group composed of National
Security Council, Armed Forces of the Philippines,
Philippine National Police, Bureau of Fire Protection, and
the Philippine Coast Guard.

Elnas stressed that the efforts of the energy sector
with the help of the security group will help the conduct of
peaceful, orderly, honest and credible elections.

During the final meeting of the ETFE, member
agencies that include National Electrification Administration
(NEA), National Power Corporation (NPC), National
Transmission Corporation (TransCo), Power Sector Assets
and Liabilitites Management Corporation (PSALM),
Philippine Electricity Market Corporation (PEMC).
Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines
Inc. (IEMOP), National Grid Corporation of the Philippines
(NGCP) and Manila Electric Company (MERALCO),
presented their final preparations and contingencies to
critical areas during the meeting.

In a statement, Energy Secretary Cusi assured the
public that the energy sector will be working 24/7 to help
ensure a successful National and Local Elections.

“Our main goal is to ensure that there will be
adequate and uninterrupted supply of energy during the
election period,” Cusi said.

“Filipino voters deserve clean and unquestionable
elections with the stable provision of energy during the
voting until the full transmission of results,” Cusi added.
(PIA InfoComm/DOE)