Pagpati'ut - Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue

FOREWORD
DAVID GORMAN (R) WITH
ABTAJIR TINGKASAN (L)
In August 2010, the HD team in Sulu and I travelled to Silangkan, Parang Municipality,
was at the center of a local rido. Our local mediation team had been asked to intervene
the Barangay and were warmly greeted by the MNLF Commander Abtajir Tingkasan and
one that had, at one time, seen better days. While we had travelled extensively throughout
Sulu, Silangkan seemed to embody so many of the challenges in the Province. Its homes
were dilapidated, there was little infrastructure, industry or development and barely any
government presence aside from a school overladen with children with few opportunities
to look forward to. Nonetheless, what struck us about Silangkan more than any of this
was in fact a genuine desire of this commander to change the way business was done in
some degree of security, keep the ASG in the surrounding hills in check and ensure clan
violence in town was kept to a minimum. After all there was no police, no courts and
essentially no government to maintain law and order so someone needed to take charge.
But, he confessed, this was no future and they had failed the people. As a large group of
high school children passed by, he pointed to them, noting they had little future in this town
he was prepared to swallow his pride and settle his rido unconditionally so that the village
would not suffer for it. We departed with promises to follow up and when we returned to
Jolo, we met with the young newly elected Mayor of Parang, Madzhar T. Loong. He was
quite pleased to hear about our meeting with Commander Abtajir and his willingness to
drop the rido but perhaps just as importantly, he echoed the same sentiments as those in
Silangkan outlining the steps they have taken and are prepared to take to create a more
stable environment for development and hopefully even investment. I think it was then that
we all said to ourselves, here is a village that really wants to change and seems to have
the willingness to do so. There are probably many other Silangkan’s in Sulu as well but
perhaps while we cannot address them all or certainly not any one sector, perhaps we can
at least support communities that can be a model for others. Meaning if they demonstrate
to the government, donors and hopefully private investors that they have the will and the
commitment to support change and they are rewarded with comprehensive development
and investment targeting all the key sectors then perhaps other communities will also try
and emulate their example.
In Silangkan it became readily apparent that when we constantly point out or target what
doesn’t work we may often miss out what does work and what we can build on. We hope
through this publication, we help point out what is in fact working and in the process
encourage others to also take a fresh look at Mindanao and see how we can better target
those people and places which demonstrated the courage and ability to build a better
Mindanao.
DAVID GORMAN
Country Representative
Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue
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