EVERY TWENTY SECONDS, a person is displaced or forced to leave his home somewhere in Mindanao.
For the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), the figure is smaller, though not necessarily less alarming – around one displaced person every two minutes.
This is according to the Bangsamoro Human Rights Network, a network of over 40 agencies and individuals that have banded together to address the human rights situation in Mindanao. The BHRN was formed by the Regional Human Rights Commission, and is composed of civil society organizations, international agencies, and government agencies.
Statistics culled by the network in the last one year and a half since the network began collating data on forcible displacement paint an alarming picture of tragedy, wastage, and alienation. If anything, the data gathered by the group shows just how difficult it is for Mindanaoans to live normal progressive lives when the possibility of forced displacement hangs constantly over the heads of many communities.
Consider these numbers from the last year and a half:
- 4,688 persons are forcibly displaced every day in Mindanao, or an average of a person every 20 seconds
- Over 2.5 million persons were displaced across Mindanao since January 2012. Of these, 35 percent are still displaced until today
- P9.2 billion in estimated direct income lost by communities that were forcibly displaced (assuming 20 percent of the population earned a daily wage of P 255)
- 63 million – cumulative number of school days lost by children who were forcibly displaced in Mindanao.
For the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), the following figures were recorded:
- 27 persons per hour were displaced in the ARMM since January 2012, or 647 persons per day
- P258.5 million in estimated direct income lost because of forcible displacement.
- 1.9 million in cumulative schooldays lost by children who were displaced.
Interestingly, the primary reason for the greatest displacement of Mindanaoans is not the conflict between the government and the Moro rebels, or the government and the New People’s Army, or not even the rampant ridos or blood feuds that afflict the region.
The network reports that the greatest number of displaced people was caused by natural disasters, in the form of floods and storms that ravaged the island in the last two years.
Also, while armed conflict is the second biggest reason for displacements of people in Mindanao, most of the displacements were caused by fighting between the government and the communist rebels in the eastern part of the island. “The conflict between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Armed Forces of the Philippines, contrary to popular belief, has not caused significant displacement during this period,” the network reported. “In other words, forced displacment is largely caused for reasons not address in the Framework Agreement for the Bangsamoro but the cases of displacement will have a significant impact on its implementation.”
The third biggest cause of displacement in Mindanao is because of the ridos or blood feuds between and within the powerful and influential clans in Mindanao.
The most number of people affected by multiple displacements in Mindanao are from Region XI, or the Davao region, with 115,433 cases, followed by the ARMM with 54,745.
For the ARMM itself, the network says the highest number of people affected by displacements are in Maguindanao with 265,898 people, followed by Lanao Sur with 67,144 people, and Basilan with 20,248. Again, as in the whole of Mindanao, the primary cause of displacement was natural disasters affecting 199,979 people, followed by armed conflict affecting 70,989 people.
The Bangsamoro Human Rights Network and the Regional Human Rights Commission started collating data on internal displacements in January 2012 in order to paint a bigger and broader picture of the continued plight of the bakwits, or people forced to evacuate their homes for various reasons.