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Friday, March 29, 2024

Sustained Services To Conflict-Affected Areas, A Quest For The Gov’t

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Davao del Norte – Providing sustained government services to conflict-affected and previously unserved areas stands as a crucial challenge for the government.

Office of the Presidential Assistant on Peace Process (OPAPP) Area Management Head  Oliver  “Ollie” Binancilan  pointed this out saying current efforts towards peace and progress can hardly be realized if community folks would still support the cause of communist-terrorist group (CTG) which capitalizes on failures of the government.

“Dili nato hikalimtan nga kasagaran sa mga unserved areas, naay mga hinanakit nga kung dili siya ma-address ug masakyan sa mga communist terrorist group posibli na, madani sila ug makuha, ug ma-recruit ug mosalmot sa ilang kalihukan,” he said in one of the recent episodes of One Davao Presser.

Binancilan had taken note that peace and development usually remained elusive without addressing the root-causes of community grievances.

“…nanghinaut ko, ug dako kaayo ni nga hagit sa atong mga local officials ug sa  panggobyerno, nga unta dili nato undangon ning atong program, plano nga paghatag ug serbisyo labi na sa mga areas nga conflict-affected areas,” he said.

Binancilan cited this challenge as the discussed  the operational framework of Local Peace Engagement (LPE) under E.O. 70 ,  that bridges the gap between local and national governments, and the CTG identified as the main target  to finally put an end to local communist armed conflict.

Among  the 12 clusters created under E.O. 70, LPE was cited by Binancilan as “unique” as it uses various ways for government officials and CTG members to meet and discuss agreements resulting in desired peace and understanding.

“We are following the principles of human rights: inclusive participation, accountability  and transparency,” Binancilan while citing  focus group discussion (FGD) among the strategies to engage key community stakeholders.

FGD is productively used in LPE to determine crucial needs and primary issues why community members are joining or supporting the communist insurgency movement, Binancilan said.

LPE implementation is anchored on the objective to “strengthen capacities of local and national governments to collective address socio-economic divides resulting in local folks’ capacities of to resist violence,” Binancilan explained.

Another objective of LPE is to trigger community participation in peace-building and development efforts to achieve resiliency and cultural harmony, Binancilan added.

LPE is also geared towards institutionalizing platform to  change public mindsets towards attaining good governance resulting in improving the lives of disadvantaged folks.
(Jeanevive Duron-Abangan, PIA XI | Michael Manguhig, RPN DXKT Davao OIC)

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