The Institute for Peace and Development in Mindanao (IPDM) held a virtual training-workshop on Conflict-Sensitive and Peace-Promoting Approaches Training-Workshop for personnel of the Peace and Conflict Resolution Division (PCRD) of the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF) – Northern Mindanao Regional Office on February 8-11, and 15, 2021.
The five-day activity that was held via Zoom was also participated in by the chiefs and employees of other divisions of NCMF Region 10. The PCRD takes the lead role in advocating peace and resolving conflict in Muslim Filipino communities in the region through community-based programs and projects.
The training-workshop aimed to capacitate the participants in designing and implementing programs that are conflict-sensitive and that promote peace. The topics included in the training-workshop were self-transformation relevant to peacebuilding; skills, models, and theories on conflict-resolution and peacebuilding; basic tools in preparing a conflict assessment, among others.
During the opening program, Chancellor Sukarno Tanggol expressed his hope to address, through peace initiatives and sensitivities, the narratives that promoted misunderstanding of Islam and that also stimulated conflict globally, including the Marawi Siege.
Chancellor Tanggol also mentioned his vision of MSU-IIT hosting advanced training on these areas at the international level, as well as pursuing sustainable academic programs for peace and development. He also reiterated his administration’s strong commitment to peace and development.
Aside from the IPDM Team led by Asst. Prof. Yasmira P. Moner, former IPDM Director, Prof. Saturnina Rodil, and Dean Macrina Morados of the UP Institute of Islamic Studies were among the resource speakers of the activity.
Dr. Abdulnasser P. Masorong, Regional Director of NCMF-10, conveyed his heartfelt gratitude for the realization of the training-workshop. The idea sprang from his visit to the University two years ago where he met with Prof. Rodil and discussed possible partnerships and engagements.
Dr. Masorong recognized the need to capacitate NCMF employees on peace education and conflict settlement for them to effectively and competently implement the mandate of the division. Among the tasks they have been doing are activities on preventing and countering violent extremism, networking with peace advocates and organizations such as IPDM.
Furthermore, he articulated his hope for more engagements through collaboration between NCMF and MSU-IIT, not only on peace promotion but on other aspects and programs that will help promote the well-being of Muslim Filipinos in Northern Mindanao.
-Photos by OPI and IPDM
*Asst. Prof. Karen Veloso is a faculty of the College of Nursing and a member of its College Research and Extension Committee. Her areas of specialization are Community Health Nursing, Medical-Surgical Nursing, Mental Health and Psychosocial Support. She is the current Peace Education Coordinator of MSU-IIT IPDM. You may follow her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-veloso-1414773b/.
AS PART of its commitment to a just and sustainable peace and development, the MSU-IIT’s Institute for Peace and Development in Mindanao (IPDM) spearheaded a whole day orientation and workshop in support to the recently-established Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) on August 20, 2019 at the Ideya Hub in the College of Business Administration and Accountancy.
The activity is the first of the planned 3-phase project initiated by the IPDM in order to sustain the Institute’s peace efforts through instruction, research, extension, and production. The project is among the identified priority areas towards mainstreaming the Institute’s extension services with IPDM as the leading unit to work on these efforts in coordination and collaboration with the academic and semi-academic units of the Institute.
The activity was participated by the various academic heads, cost center representatives, and faculty members of the Institute.
On behalf of the Chancellor, Dr. Franco Teves, Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and the Institute’s Officer-in-Charge, delivered the welcome message and reminded the participants of the shared moral responsibility in ensuring the success of the Bangsamoro Organic Law and the BARMM.
IPDM’s Director, Assoc. Prof. Saturnina Rodil, emphasized the essential role of academic institutions like MSU-IIT in providing technical knowledge through an evidence-based support program in a manner that is peace-promoting, as well as culturally- and gender-sensitive.
During the pre-orientation, Dr. Maria. Cecilia Ferolin, Director of the Department of Extension, reiterated the need to sustain the relevant and sustained extension services of the Institute by anchoring it to the global framework of the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 (SDGs) with peace and human security as two of the key priority areas.
The highlight of the morning session was the orientation on the RA 11054, “An Act Providing for the Organic Law for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao,” otherwise known as the BOL, delivered by Atty. Nassief Lalia Mangadang, Chief of Staff of Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) Member Atty. Maisara Dandamun-Latiph.
Mangadang highlighted the salient features of the BOL particularly on the political restructuring of the new autonomous region, with the 80-appointive member of the BTA as the interim government until the regular Bangsamoro election in 2022. The economic provision on the block grant and the special development assistance fund was given due attention in as much as it determines the genuine fiscal autonomy, which was lacking in the defunct ARMM.
The Chief of Staff concluded his talk by asking for the continued support from the Institute as the BTA is currently doing public consultations which are significant policy inputs in the making of pertinent policies and guidelines on education, revenue generation, and local governance, to name a few.
The afternoon session was devoted to the workshop proper wherein the participants were grouped into three clusters: (1) Education and Social Services; (2) Economy and Finance; and (3) Local Governance, Public Order and Safety, and the Environment. The three clusters discussed and came out with project proposals that the Institute may undertake in order to support the BARMM.
In order to build on the output during the workshop, a Technical Working Group (TWG) was created to work on the initial project proposals and ensure the sustainability of the research-based intervention programs, projects, and activities for the BARMM.
Conflict-sensitive reporting contributes to reconciliation and peacebuilding.
With this conclusion in mind, and driven by the felt need for this to be practiced not only in the journalism profession but also in other occupations and vocations, the Institute for Peace and Development in Mindanao (IPDM) opens today a three-day course that aims to integrate the concept in communication-related programs.
The Seminar-Workshop on Integrating Conflict-Sensitive Journalism in Communication-Related Programs: The Philosophy and Practice will run from October 24-26 in two venues inside the MSU-IIT campus – the IPDM Kalinaw Hall and the Amphitheater of the College of Education.
It targets around 100 students and 28 teachers from various schools and universities in Region 10 and the cities of Iligan, Cagayan de Oro, and Malaybalay, including Marawi of Lanao del Sur.
IPDM conducts the activity in partnership with the Forum Civil Peace Service or forumZFD.
The forumZFD is an association of various German peace movement and non-profit organizations aimed at creating and strengthening the instruments of civilian conflict resolution by non-violent means.
The forumZFD is supporting the seminar-workshop with a 200,00-peso grant, while MSU-IIT provides the venues and hosts the participants’ three-day stay.
Resource persons for the activity come from the forumZFD and the PECOJON or the Peace and Conflict Journalism Network.
The PECOJON is an international network of journalists and media practitioners, photographers, filmmakers and academicians who develop, promote and implement high quality reporting of conflict, crisis and war.
IPDM officer-in-charge Prof. Mark Anthony J. Torres, PhD, in an interview, lays down the four objectives of the seminar-workshop:
Facilitate learning among communication teachers and students on the philosophy of conflict-sensitive journalism, and the need for integration in the curriculum vis-a-vis media realities;
Recall the role of journalism in empowering people and dealing with issues in Mindanao such as the Bangsamoro peace process and other conflict issues;
Introduce conflict analysis tools for journalistic practice; and
Identify entry points of integration in specific communication subjects.
The seminar-workshop opens with a dialogue on the theory and practice of conflict-sensitive journalism; the role of journalists in providing a peace lens to their reports; and the nuances and differences between conflict-sensitive journalism and peace journalism.
Torres says that at the later part of the three-day activity, “the program will give way to an in-depth training on conflict analysis tools, which can be used by communications teachers in their subjects”.
Earlier in the year, MSU-IIT’s Office of Publication and Information (OPI) and the Department of English holds the lecture, Culture-Sensitive Reporting: the Muslim, the Lumad, and the Media at the CASSalida Theater.
The April 8 lecture was given by Dr. Victorio N. Sugbo of the University of the Philippines-Visayas as part of the conference: Current Issues and Trends in Language and Literature: Globalizing the Local.
“I hope people would understand that change is indeed coming.”
This is what MSU-IIT Chancellor Sukarno D. Tanggol told the estimated 6,000 persons who gathered at the Institute gymnasium on Saturday (October 15) as he welcomed them to the Region 10 launch of the Kilusang Pagbabago movement.
“We should support Duterte’s call for change,” Tanggol said to the huge crowd who had come from four provinces to become part of the grassroots-based movement.
The Kilusang Pagbabago is an initiative that targets the most basic level of society – the local communities. It was created to support the changes being effected by the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte.
The movement is also viewed to serve as a partner of the Duterte administration that would guarantee basic government services reach, and government programs benefit the masses.
Duterte’s Cabinet Secretary Leoncio B. Evasco, Jr. was on hand for the launching of the Kilusang Pagbabago movement that was attended by local government officials (mayors and councilors); barangay officials; community leaders; multi-sectoral groups; and grassroots organizations.
The attendees came from the provinces of Bukidnon, Misamis Oriental, Misamis Occidental, and Lanao Norte, and the cities of Iligan and Cagayan de Oro.
Evasco has been going around the Philippines lately swearing in community leaders and volunteers as members of the movement.
After he received the results of the various consultations conducted in the grassroots communities all over Region 10, Evasco swore in those present at the gym into the Kilusang Pagbabago organization in a mass oath-taking ceremony.
Evasco is a former rebel-priest and mayor of a Bohol municipality.
He served as Duterte’s chief-of-staff in Davao, and then went on to handle the latter’s presidential campaign.
The campus launch of the Kilusang Pagbabago movement in Region 10 was co-organized by IIT’s Institute for Peace and Development in Mindanao (IPDM) in coordination with the Department of Extension (DE) and the Center for Local Governance Studies (CLGS) of the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Extension (OVCRE).
IPDM officer-in-charge Prof. Mark Anthony J. Torres, Phd said that the Kilusang Pagbabago is the banner program of the newly-created Office of Participatory Governance of Malacanang.
Dr. Azizah Al-Hibri, Founder of KARAMAH: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights and professor emerita at the T.C. Williams School of Law at the University of Richmond, will visit MSU-IIT on August 16, 2016 to give a lecture at the CASSalida Theatre, College of Arts and Social Sciences and a roundtable discussion at the Institute for Peace and Development in Mindanao (IPDM).
Al-Hibri began her career as a professor of philosophy and is the co-editor of Technology and Human Affairs, and founding editor of Hypatia, a journal of feminist philosophy. She obtained her Juris Doctor degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1985 and worked as a corporate law associate on Wall Street before focusing her efforts on human rights and Islamic jurisprudence.
The first Muslim woman law professor in the US in 1992, Al-Hibri has written extensively on women’s issues, democracy, and human rights from an Islamic perspective. Her current work is completing the second volume of her recent publication, Islamic Worldview: Islamic Jurisprudence, An American Muslim Perspective, Vol. 1. This second volume revisits traditional Islamic jurisprudence in order to develop a modern enlightened understanding of Islam with respect to gender, marriage, family, and democratic governance.
On Tuesday, the American Muslim lawyer will talk on “The Islamic worldview and its consequences” to invited faculty, college and law students, religious leaders, sharia lawyers, and judges.
The event is hosted by the US Embassy in partnership with the departments of English, Sociology, Political Science, the IPDM and OPI.
