3 groups of people live peacefully at former war zone in Cotabato 01/23/2011

3 groups of people live peacefully at former war zone in Cotabato

01/23/2011
KIDAPAWAN CITY, Cotabato — While intermittent armed fighting between warring groups of indigenous people and Moro rebels continue in Kabacan town in North Cotabato, the Aromanon Manuvus in a nearby barangay in Carmen town “co-exist peacefully” with neighbors who are Maguindanaons and Ilocanos.

Instead of firearms, the three groups of peoples — the lumads, Moro, and the settlers at Sitio Kibales in Barangay Cadiis, one of the remotest villages in Carmen town, bring farm tools as they go to their “communal” farms daily.

The villagers started their initiative in July last year when they organized the Tri-People Parents Organization (TPPO) — a group of parents of the young Manuvus, Maguindanaons, and Ilocanos from the barangay who underwent alternative learning given by a Cotabato City-based Community Family Services International (CFSI), a non-government organization (NGO).

Later on, about 31 heads of families, with their children, built the 750-square meter fishpond through the food-for-work project of the United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP)..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20110123nat5.html