Costs and consequences of conflict and peace in Mindanao

COVERAGE of the conflict in Mindanao seldom tackles its economic and social costs beyond the deaths and injuries among combatants and civilians caught in the crossfire, damage to property and infrastructure, and to some extent, deaths and illnesses resulting from the displacement of affected populations.

War, however, leaves behind lasting economic and even non-monetary impacts. In her session at the PCIJ-Newsbreak seminar on “Reporting on Conflict and Peace: The Story of Mindanao,” Jaileen Jimeno, PCIJ deputy executive director, discussed how the Mindanao conflict has made provinces, particularly from the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), even poorer, lagging in terms of delivery of basic social services as education, health, water and santiation, and electricity.

Citing the Philippine Human Development Report in 2005, Jimeno pointed to estimates of economic losses due to the Mindanao conflict ranging from P5 billion to P10 billion annually from 1975 to 2002. Aside from damage to properties, such losses include less social spending (in favor of military spending) and forgeone investment opportunies.

War’s non-monetary ill effects, meanwhile, take the form of the loss of cultural identity and social cohesion, loss of personal dignity, prejudice, ethnic and social tensions; rise in kidnap-for- ransom, drug trafficking, and other illegal activities.

Jimeno also presented current socioeconomic data to illustrate how the consequences of war have plagued the Muslim-dominated provinces in Mindanao.

Listen to Jimeno’s talk on The Costs and Consequences of Conflict and Peace in Mindanao:

• Part 1
  Length: 00:26:49
  Language: English and Filipino
  File size: 24.5 MB

• Part 2
  Length: 00:25:30
  Language: English and Filipino
  File size: 23.3 MB