there was a time that 3 out 4 babies would not live past the age of four in certain parts of the ARMM (autonomous region in muslim mindanao). Of those that survived, only a fraction would be literate.

this was some years ago. i haven't checked the new indicators on how life is going for the rest of our filipino siblings down there, but i'm sure it hasn't gotten much better.

also, each time war erupts, in big or small iterations, families are displaced in the hundreds, sometimes thousands. People are forced to leave behind everything familiar and move to cramped relief camps.

In late 1999 to 2000, when erap declared an all out war against the rebels during his term, close to one million people were displaced (500,000 according to more conservative reports). An NGO i once worked for reported that 90,000 families were displaced because of that war.

it's fair to say that the rebels are more agile than our military, and more familiar with their mountains. ergo, they are almost impossible to fully eradicate.

If we continue to vacillate between exterminating them and talking to them- well, nothing will get done. i'm for peace talks by the way- because while the government chatters away with the rebels, the NGO's and IO's can move in and start rebuilding people's lives. they can't do that when bullets are flying.

In the meantime, the one who suffers is the child without a childhood, the mother ten-times moved from home to refugee camp, and the father (or son) forced to carry an armalite just to make his family feel "safe."

tonight my prayers go out to Mindanao, always on the mend, always being torn apart.