Pagpati'ut - Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue

Mediating Violence In Sulu
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shared by the two peaceful Barangays. These two, instead, prefer the
BPATs (Barangay Police Auxilliary Teams) and Barangay Tanods. While
these are all government units, the fundamental difference is that the
police is armed, while the BPAT and the Barangay Tanod are not.
in ensuring safety. On the other hand, peaceful communities give more
Again, this creates the impression that as a community achieves peace
settlement, the preference also changes – from an armed security to
non-armed security personnel. More study, however is still needed to
authoritatively claim this to be true.
But between the police and the military, there is greater expectation given
to the police. In other words, law enforcement and not military action is
more preferred by the people.
The respondents also seem to have stronger sentiments towards
community-based actions (e.g. community organizing), but are less
decided on individual-actions (e.g. going out alone; wearing expensive
things, going out without a companion). Again, this seems to suggest
that a community-based response appears to be what the people want,
and hence efforts must be exerted to help the communities organize
themselves. But similar to the statement earlier, a deeper study is
warranted in this regard.
Finally, among the Barangays, Masjid Pujungan stands out for giving
more decided answers (i.e., reaching a 50%+1 majority in most answers),
as compared to the other Barangays that gave middle-of-the-road or
seemingly safe answers. Barangay Bunot comes next. Note that both have
assertiveness of the respondents.
respondents were asked to check the services and economic activities
opinion of the respondents.