Peace-Building and Development Work in Mindanaw: Helping Build Empowered Sustainable Communities. Helping Build Peace in Mindanaw.
Helping find a final resolution to the Mindanao conflict by acting as mediator and Independent Secretariat to the Peace Process between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Manggagawa sa Mindanao (RPM-M).
The barangay (Philippine village) is the key locus and focus of BMFI's area-based peace-building and development work.
BMFI's Area-Based Operations Team (ABOT) will continue to live and work fulltime in the 80 barangays that have been identified as BMFI focus-barangays. In these barangays, BMFI's intervention is at its fullest. This is also seen as the important anchor to keep BMFI "grounded" and rooted as it pursues its other multi-level involvement in peace-building and development work.
Within the next two years, it is projected that BMFI will be able to fully integrate a community-based peace-building component into its sustainable integrated area development program.
Already, all the twenty (20) community organizers of BMFI who are called Sustainable Integrated Area Development Organizers (SIADOs, also pronounced "shadows") and 25 community leaders and barangay (village) government officials have undergone a four-week Comprehensive Peace-Building Course called OP KORS (Operation Peace Course) held from February to May 2005 in partnership with the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS).
The last week of the four-week course was devoted to formulating the various community-based peace-building plans of the new peace-builders.
A key part of Balay Mindanaw's new strategy on peace-building is Peace Education as it expects to form a core pool of trained and committed NGO peace workers and grassroots and local government leaders able to work on community-based peace-building and as support team for the Peace Process.
We envision to put in place a team of peace-building cadres in the partner-barangays of Balay Mindanaw.
These trained peace practitioners are expected to be the start of a social movement that will integrate the work for empowerment, development and peace as key to solving Mindanao's marginalization, underdevelopment and unpeace.
A Comprehensive Course for Peacebuilders in Mindanaw consisting of at least four modules including a seven-day actual work in the various peace zones in Mindanao will be run at least twice a year for two years. This course is a follow up to the 7-day course conducted during the last quarter of 2004 and the four-week course conducted from February to May 2005 in partnership with CRS.
In each course, there will be two simultaneous classes to be run: one for the NGO development workers and peace-builders; and another course for local government officials, barangay captains, paralegals and key local people's organizations and community leaders.
CRS will be requested to continue providing the resource persons and facilitators to augment the present BMFI team.
Empowered and sustainable communities are the real foundation of lasting peace. The process itself (and not the process' end) will already allow these communities to win small victories, and build peace by and for themselves. The final resolution is important but communities need not wait for this. Building peace is here and now.
Empowered, sustainable and peaceful barangays, communities and tribes able to freely analyze their situation, appreciate their resources, identify their needs, formulate and implement their own plans, and living in harmony with history, culture and nature.
The formulation of conflict profile/mapping specifically of the barangay, consolidated sectoral issues with stress on cases of conflicts as well as issues on the marginalization of the tribal groups, and identified priority projects thru the conduct of local consultations in at least twenty barangays in Mindanao.
Implementation of priority development projects in the barangays covered by the local consultations.
Pursue the formal talks leading to a formal peace agreement.
Among the most important component of this proposal is the establishment of the Community Peace and Development Support Fund of P100,000.00 per barangay or a total of P1,000,000.00 for ten barangays. Something should immediately happen after each consultation especially in terms of priority projects identified during the consultations. However, it would take sometime to mobilize sufficient resources especially coming from the government. The P100,000.00 allocated for each barangay is expected to ensure that something actually happens in the community after the consultation. This amount would be enough to support small rural infrastructure, livelihood, and other small development projects. This is necessary to help these communities experience the "small victories" needed to inspire them to continue pursuing the path of and to peace.
The priority projects are already identified by the communities through local consultations using participatory technologies.
Component One of BMFI's Peace-Building Program targets the eighty (80) poorest rural upland barangays (villages) in Claveria, Gingoog and the Misamis Oriental Eastern Towns (MISORET) where BMFI is currently doing community-based work.
Component Two of this Program targets the local community leaders, the elected barangay officials, and the professional NGO workers by training and forming them into peace-builders who will form the core of the new social movement of community-based peace-builders in Northern Mindanao.
Component Three of this Program targets the two principals in the three-decade old conflict between the Government and the revolutionary groups by mediating in the Peace Process that hopefully could lead into a final resolution. This Component will also target the poorest and most marginalized barangays and tribal villages where local consultations will be conducted as integral part of the Peace Process.
The Communities, Villages and Tribes: These are most major stakeholders in the quest for peace. BMFI's interventions will be heavily influenced and tempered by the local realities, local initiatives and local knowledge. Thus, BMFI's work is seen mainly as a humble effort to supplement and complement the efforts of the key stakeholders on the ground. This Program will be firmly rooted in the partner barangays and tribes. The barangay development councils, the tribal councils and the various sectoral and geographic organizations participating in these participatory mechanisms are considered as key actors.
The Civil Society: This Program is also viewed by BMFI as its contribution to the broader efforts of the other civil society organizations and networks. Among these networks are the Balay Mindanaw Group of NGOs (BMG), Mindanao Congress of Development NGOs and NGIs (MINCON), Mindanao Coalition of Development NGO Networks (MINCODE), Kusog Mindanaw, and Mindanao Peace Advocates Conference (MPAC). BMFI holds key leadership roles in all these networks and coalitions.
The Church: This Program is also seen as an effort to complement the various initiatives of the local churches especially in the areas of justice, peace and integrity of creation. This is also seen as the anchor peace program of the CABUSTAM cluster of PMP.
The Government (Local and National): Governance is more than the action of government. It is the interaction of government agencies and officials with the corporate sector, civil society organizations, churches, and political parties in the adoption of policies, setting of priorities, allocation of resources, selection of officials, and implementation/non-implementation of decisions. Thus, government is viewed as a key stakeholder in the quest for equity, development and peace. BMFI will continue to work in principled partnership with the local government units, the development councils, the Government Panels in the Peace Processes, the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) and the other national government agencies.
The Resource Partners: BMFI has been blessed by the continued trust and support from its resource partners. These partnerships will be pursued and nurtured in the spirit of mutual respect, transparency and accountability. Among the key resource partners of BMFI are MISEREOR, CORDAID, CRS, German Development Service, GTZ, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Trocaire and Christian Aid.
The Project is considered as an investment into the future. Its success will largely be measured by its impact on the empowerment of peoples and communities as they continue to strive for authentic development and lasting peace.
Furthermore, one of the key result areas of the over-all BMFI program is to increase the capacities of target communities to initiate their activities and raise their own funds from various sources to supplement their own internally mobilized resources. The program calls for community resource mobilization as a key to sustainability.
The Peace Process is viewed as an opportunity or avenue for peoples, tribes and communities to understand, realize, confront and resolve their own issues and problems of inequity, injustice and poverty. The best guarantee of sustainability are the empowered, sustainable and peaceful barangays, communities and tribes able to freely analyze their situation, appreciate their resources, identify their needs, formulate and implement their own plans, and living in harmony with history, culture and nature.


This simple and contemporary bangle is quite chunky, made with a 3mm thick sterling silver wire. The bangles diameter measures approximately 6.5cm, which fits a medium sized hand and wrist. The charm is fitted onto a large sterling silver jumpring that moves around the bangle. The shell was casted into sterling silver through the art of lost wax casting from a real specimen found on a local Perth beach. A classy piece of jewellery for every day wear!


Consumer advocacy groups FlyersRights.org and Travelers United are ramping up pressure on US regulators to stop airlines from further shrinking the width of coach class seats and tightening up seat pitch.
"Our immediate goal is to place a moratorium on further seat and space reduction while minimum standards are developed," FlyersRights.org president Paul Hudson told RGN last year. Since then, the group has circulated a petition in a bid to stop the seat squeeze, calling it a safety issue.
Mandating minimum seat pitch standards, in particular, is necessary "to preclude ingress/egress and health issues", argues the group. It suggests that the risk of DVT grows when people are seated in restrictive, cramped spaces.
Though a US DOT advisory committee – of which Travelers United chairman Charlie Leocha is a member – failed to agree a recommendation for minimum seat standards, it did flag as a concern the lack of realistic evacuation testing of high-density cabins, and sought assurances that the "90 second evacuation test" can be met when the FAA certifies aircraft (at present, most evacuation testing is done via simulation, not with real people).
But Leocha is also now working with FlyersRights.org on the minimum seat standard petition, reports the Washington Post.
A number of airlines operate widebody aircraft in high-density seating configurations with seat bottoms measuring less than 17 inches in width – less, even, than the 17-inch wide seats on Boeing 737 narrowbodies. Increasingly, the average seat pitch for economy class is a humble 31 inches on longhaul flights, though it can be as little as 28 inches on short- and medium-haul flights. Some airlines may position seats even tighter (at 27 inches) in the future.
Without regulation, says FlyersRights.org, "The sky's the limit" and airlines will allow seating conditions to further devolve.
Meanwhile, it's now a common occurrence to see passengers complain about seat width and pitch on social media.
Their concern is understandable, but as airlines would quickly point out – passengers are still paying for these seats. And the price of airfare is still a main factor when choosing a flight. Unless and until travelers exercise their voice by exercising their wallets to ensure a better passenger experience (#PaxEx on Twitter) – or regulators step in – it's difficult to see how the current paradigm will change. RGN addresses the seat squeeze – both how it's being physically accomplished in aircraft cabins, and why some are crying foul – in the latest episodes of #PaxEx TV below.


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FDA denies request to block generic painkiller
In a surprise move Friday, federal health regulators denied a request by Endo Health Solutions to block generic versions of its painkiller Opana ER, which the company argued are more easily abused than its branded product.
Endo's Opana ER is a long-acting narcotic drug used to treat moderate and severe pain. Such medications are frequently crushed and then injected or snorted by drug abusers to achieve a euphoric effect.
Last year Endo reformulated Opana with the aim of making the pills more difficult to crush. The company also hoped the move would protect its expiring patent on Opana by blocking approval of generic versions based on the original formulation.
The company petitioned the Food and Drug Administration last year to deny approval to any generic versions, arguing that these products are easier to abuse than its current product.
But the FDA said in an announcement late Friday that it denied the petition, pointing out that Endo's reformulated drug can still be abused.
"We are extremely disappointed and disagree with today's decision," said Rajiv De Silva, CEO of the Malvern, Pa.-based company. Opana ER had sales of nearly $300 million last year and accounted for 10 percent of annual sales for Endo Health Solutions Inc. The company said the decision would reduce its 2013 projected sales by $120 million and reduce earnings by 55 cents per share. The company previously said it expected revenue between $2.8 billion and $2.95 billion and adjusted earnings between $4.40 and $4.70 per share.
The FDA's announcement came after the close of trading on Wall Street. Trading in Endo's stock was halted pending the news announcement during regular trading. Shares fell 35 cents to $34.62 in after-hours trading.
While acknowledging that the new Opana ER is more difficult to crush than the original formulation, "study data show that the reformulated version's extended-release features can be compromised when subjected to other forms of manipulation, such as cutting, grinding, or chewing, followed by swallowing," the FDA said in a statement on its website. The agency added that the drug can be prepared for snorting "using commonly available tools and methods."
The FDA decision comes as a surprise since the agency granted a similar request last month by Purdue Pharma, maker of the blockbuster painkiller OxyContin.
The FDA said it will not approve any generic versions of OxyContin based on the original formulation because of its potential for abuse. A patent supporting the original form of the drug expired April 17. The FDA approved labeling for the reformulated version of OxyContin noting that it is harder to abuse.
Purdue Pharmaceuticals LP stopped selling the original version of OxyContin in 2010, about 15 years after the drug was launched, because of widespread concern about people who were crushing the drug and injecting or snorting it to get high off its main ingredient, oxycodone.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl