Children Take Small Steps Towards Peace in Mindanao!

Quezon City, Philippines 01 October 2008-Footprints of children in armed conflict in Mindanao queued up towards a sign of peace at the Peace Bell inside Quezon City Circle this morning. The footprints symbolize the call of children and child rights advocates to stop the Arroyo government’s all-out war and restart the peace negotiations with the MILF.

 SALINLAHI Alliance for Children’s Concerns took the lead for today’s activity, gathering about 100 children, including Moro children from urban poor communities in Metro Manila. The group, together with other child-focused organizations referred to a peace that is based on justice and not a peace of the graveyard.

 Alphonse Rivera, Spokesperson of SALINLAHI, said, “While October is celebrated nationwide as children’s month, Salinlahi and its allies see no reason to celebrate it with festivities. Today is the last day of the Ramadan and we mark this 1^st day of October as a day for calling peace for the sake of the Filipino children, especially the Moro children. The Moro people of Mindanao have long been struggling for their right to self-determination and for their ancestral domain and yet the government responds with bombs, bullets and massive displacement of the Moro people from their homes and sources of livelihood, time and time again.”

 The National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) reported at least 500,000 families so far displaced by this conflict and crowding out limited spaces in evacuation centers. “Children are getting sick and have stopped schooling. Children have also died because of indiscriminate firing and air strikes by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP),” continued Rivera.

 Now that Pres. Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo and the AFP are asking for the declaration of MILF leaders Bravo and Kato as terrorists by the United Nations (UN) and with the pull-out of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) peace negotiating panel from the Peace Talks, SALINLAHI and other child rights advocates are expecting a continuous rise in the numbers of war victims, especially women and children. “Women and children are vulnerable to this kind war and terror that our government has created. They are most prone to deaths, abuses, harassments and other military atrocities because the AFP does not recognize and respect their human rights,” added Rivera.

 “In this kind of war that the government is waging, there is no bright future for the Moro children. We call on other children and child rights advocates to join hands and call for peace!” Rivera concluded. ###