For several years, Indigenous Peoples (IPs) have experienced discrimination and marginalization due to the perception that they are inferior and incapable of defending their rights. As youth members of the Manobo tribe, we are very concerned about the resolution passed by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) to no longer use the term Lumad because it is allegedly used by leftist groups.

Since childhood, this is what we are used to calling all tribes here in Mindanao, and it was suddenly removed by the NCIP simply because they said it was a word used by leftist groups. Even though there is not enough and clear evidence that this word (Lumad) is from the leftist groups, they insist that it should no longer be used.

I feel very sad when reflecting on the past when women fought for independence. They were involved on the front lines with weapons and with their expertise in carrying food and medicine. They provided ideas during the negotiation and reconciliation process. They were part of civilian teams at base camps and in the clandestine front.

During and after the armed conflict (1974 - 1999), many women and girls experienced their own forms of suffering and violence, including starvation, imprisonment, rape, and sexual slavery.  Yet, their roles in conflicts are not highlighted, and their long involvement in mediation and peace processes is barely discussed in the literature.

Women have the capacity to feel the needs of those in the communities who trust women to lead the mediation and dialogue processes. I want to underline that East Timorese women participated fully in both the peace process and the negotiations. Their expertise in the conflict resolution process is durable and recognized and trusted by the conflicting parties. Women have played important roles during the invasion and post-independence.

Very few people from the non-government and peacebuilding sector get to engage in peace discourses with soldiers, let alone build good relationships with them thereafter. I would like to think that I was one of the fortunate few. I believe that experience allowed me to share with the soldiers how the narratives of conflict in Mindanao are seen from our eyes, as well as get a glimpse of how soldiers see these same narratives from their eyes.

This experience started when I got the chance to enroll in the Fundamentals of Peacebuilding (FPB) course of the Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute (MPI) in the 2008 Annual Peacebuilding Training. At that time, I was attending as a staff of the Consortium of Bangsamoro Civil Society (CBCS), Inc. If memory serves me right, I was one of three or four from CBCS who attended that year.

Cybertechnologies were among the first to deliver to the world the fearful news about what many of us dubbed as “the worst disaster” ever recorded in the history of humankind when the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that COVID-19 should be classified as a pandemic at the onset of 2020. For more than one year after the reported outbreak, different technologies delivered news of death tolls and infection statistics and how nations and communities had responded differently, and to some extent, uniquely to the pandemic. Countless times we opened our mobile tech gadgets to go online and find few feature stories on the positive and alternative practices and what leaders learned who successfully reduced or abated the worst effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was in the middle of this pandemic that the Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute Foundation, Inc. (MPI) attempted to make the most out of these technologies and invited peacebuilders from conflict areas to participate in an online Facilitation Skills Training of Trainers (FSToT) during the first quarter of 2021. The purpose of the FSToT was to better equip local mediators and peacebuilders from across the globe. The course provided the participants with a holistic and complete overview of online training facilitation and how to design it. It included what a peace training is about, what are the SMART objectives, what is it for, who is it for, what is the approach to use, what is in the toolbox, what knowledge and skills are needed, who is the trainer, what are the required resources, and what are the important considerations.