The following article was first published in the Winter 2022 issue of Mennonite Central Committee’s publication, Intersections.
Since its inception, the Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute (MPI) in the Philippines has served as a resource for peacebuilders. Through its education and training programs, MPI offers courses that are relevant and applicable to grassroots peacebuilders’ current contexts as well as reflective of ongoing development in the field of peacebuilding and conflict transformation. To date, MPI has trained over 2,300 peace activists from more than 60 countries through its in-person Annual Peacebuilding Training Program and, most recently, through its Virtual Peacebuilding Training Program. MPI hopes that the knowledge and skills gained from these courses can contribute to building and sustaining peace writ large in Asia-Pacific and beyond.
Since 2014, MPI has included courses and modules on conflict sensitivity and the Do No Harm approach. How has MPI integrated and practiced these concepts in its programming? In this article, I offer my reflections and insights into this question based on conversations I have had with my colleagues and my experience working with MPI.
MPI as a conflict-sensitive intervention: MPI’s founding ideals and story are central to the organization’s identity. How MPI operates, deliberates and considers the impact of important shifts in peacebuilding to its mandate and practice are shaped and interpreted through MPI’s genesis. At its core, MPI embodies John Paul Lederach’s description of capacity-building as a process that is “oriented towards expanding what is already in place and available” (Lederach, 108). MPI is guided by a strongly held belief that people can transform their reality.
In the late 1990s, Mindanao seemed to be in the throes of a significant transformation. A peace accord was signed in 1996 between the government of the Philippines and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), an agreement that created the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, ending the decades-long conflict with a key Muslim rebel group. The government had also reached a ceasefire agreement with another Muslim group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), to explore the possibility of separate peace talks. Local peacebuilders were hopeful and challenged to be effective in the task of supporting these peace processes.
Around the same time, a group of community leaders and local peace practitioners from Mindanao returned from the Summer Peacebuilding Institute of Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) inspired to start their own training institute. They were encouraged and propelled by discussions they had had with John Paul Lederach, a facilitator and a faculty member at EMU at the time. The idea responded to the growing need for a structure that could provide a platform for continuous learning and capacity-building in peacebuilding in Mindanao and elsewhere. Local and international organizations with a history of working together saw the value of a training institute based in Mindanao and, as such, provided resources and support to realize this vision.
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development and Catholic Relief Services provided core support for the founding of MPI. Local organizations and individuals also mobilized to support the vision of a peace institute in Mindanao—months of preparatory meetings led to the first annual peacebuilding training that took place in 2000. Ironically, or perhaps prophetically, the first training took place during Philippine President Joseph Estrada’s all-out war in Mindanao.
MPI was the product of people working to create a place where people could be brought together, not only to learn, but to build relationships across divides. It became a venue for building solidarity with those experiencing conflict and violence in their midst. For Filipino participants at that time, MPI provided a space where they could reimagine an alternative reality for Mindanao beyond the violence of the all-out war.
Supporting connectors: How do we at MPI sustain creating spaces for people to come together and learn collaboratively? How do we continue
being responsive to the needs of peacebuilders in the country and the region? Are we contributing to societal transformation? Over the years, MPI has taken these questions seriously and has made intentional steps to address them.
First, MPI has a long-standing commitment to the principle of impartiality. MPI intentionally avoids being affiliated with any political faction in our
aim to provide a safe space for participants from opposing groups. By modeling the values of inclusivity, hospitality, respect and dialogue, MPI has succeeded in creating patterns of behavior within the confines of the Annual Peacebuilding Training that communicate to its participants that this is a space where they are welcome. This is a place for encounter and dialogue.
In 2005, MPI accepted its first participant from the Philippine military. It was a controversial move as well as a true leap of faith. The military was complicit in acts of violence and human rights violations under the Marcos dictatorship and, thus, regarded with suspicion. Indeed, across many contexts globally, the relationship between activists and peace workers, on the one hand, and state militaries, on the other, are contentious, if not hostile. MPI facilitators discovered that inclusion of this participant from the Philippine military created opportunities for transformed perspectives on the part of all participants, deepening reflections about seeing “others” as fellow human beings. This participant became a peace advocate within the military and opened up new possibilities for military and civilian engagement in the country. (See Leguro and Kwak for a fuller account).
MPI’s learning approach is also marked by its support for the development of local knowledge and locally-led peacebuilding in Mindanao. Since
2003, MPI has developed course curricula that incorporate and highlight community-based approaches and traditional practices of Indigenous peoples in peacebuilding. These field-based courses were designed to offer participants opportunities to connect and interact with community members through exposure and exchange visits. Such exchanges make visible the often-invisible contribution of grassroots peacebuilders in the field. It also normalizes the idea that wisdom and knowledge can be gained from grassroots and local peacebuilders in their struggle to transform their community from conflict to peace.
Building institutional capacity: The challenge for MPI in the next twenty years is how it can sustain bringing to life the values and principles of conflict transformation, especially for those who are intimately involved in MPI’s daily operations. This is important if MPI wants to stay true to its identity as a resource for peacebuilders.
While there are processes in place that enable those within MPI to challenge and debate institutional and programmatic policies and decisions, it is imperative that those involved in these processes know what questions to ask and can do so. This entails ongoing internal capacity development and ongoing attention to organizational culture and structure that supports transparency, inquiry and analysis.
Indeed, we are constantly reminded that peacebuilding praxis is iterative, dynamic and dialogical. We learn through experience, and through it, we are made aware of gaps in our knowledge and the realization that to be a peacebuilder one must be a lifelong learner and a person open to challenge and change.
Rhea Fe V. Silvosa is the peacebuilding programs coordinator at Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute and lives in Davao, Mindanao. She worked as MCC research associate from 2019-2020.