A former president has called for an all-out war. While most Christians, lumad and Muslims want peace, there are hotheads among the opposing factions and from other sectors.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God (Matthew 5:9).
Mindanao is characterized by high poverty, low productivity (with few exceptions), high malnutrition and low literacy. These are ingredients for lawlessness. The poor can easily be exploited for rational and irrational causes by a few.
The poverty picture
Among the bottom poor 16 provinces in the country, 10 are in Mindanao.
Leading the group are: Lanao del Sur (68.9 percent of families), Maguindanao (57.8 percent), Zamboanga del Norte (50.3 percent), Davao Oriental (48.0 percent), Sarangani (46.5 percent), North Cotabato (43.9 percent), Bukidnon (43.3 percent), Lanao del Norte (42.5 percent), and Cotabato City (41.5 percent).
Except for one province (Davao Oriental), which was devastated by Typhoon “Pablo,” the nine provinces are either in Bangsamoro or lie near its borders.
War will exacerbate the suffering of the six million peace-loving Muslim, Christian and lumad residents.
The spillover effects can affect the whole island population of about 24 million. Investments and job creation will face a downhill spiral.
The agriculture picture
Mindanao produces a large proportion of agriculture products: coconut (58 percent), corn (58 percent), banana (80 percent), rubber (99 percent), coffee and cacao (75 percent), and seaweeds (over 50 percent).
Mindanao supplies food products to Visayas and Luzon.
Mindanao hosts the country’s top three agricultural exports: coconut oil, banana and processed fish. Add to that pineapples and canned pineapples, desiccated coconut, seaweeds, seafoods, palm oil, oleochemicals and banana chips.
Mindanao accounts for about $4 billion of the $6 billion a year agri-food exports.
Markets
While Mindanao may be a smaller market than Luzon, imagine the impact on sales of consumer products when logistics, investment and production are affected by the lack of peace.
What is the upside?
Mindanao possesses the ingredients for rapid development: underutilized land and a young labor force. East to west, north to south, so much land lies idle or unproductive.
Development potential
Except for banana, pineapple and a few products, the productivity of agriculture and aquaculture is low.
For three crops, they are less than a third of good practice farming. Of the 1.7 million hectares of coconut land, at best a third are intercropped.
Some 840,000 hectares of white corn areas have low yields. Rubber and coconut trees need to be replanted.
Cacao and coffee farms can be expanded.
Thus, the upside to growth is very, very large. But this growth will not be realized without peace.
Investors will be wary of their investments and personal safety. Peace can be achieved, albeit with difficulty, by building trust and social cohesion.
Indonesia achieved peace in Aceh. Likewise, it was reached in Northern Ireland.
Poverty threshold
Since about half of Mindanao earn below the poverty threshold of some P20,000 per capita a year, eliminating poverty means about P120 billion a year in additional purchasing power.
How many fast-moving consumer goods can be bought? How much must be invested to expand capacities? How much non-farm jobs can be created from agri-based manufacturing to process agri and aqua raw materials?
Luzon and Visayas enterprises will likely benefit with expanding markets.
The benefits of peace would be billions of output, millions of jobs and several hundred billions of multipliers. War will be worse than the present time.
The hotheads among us have not done their homework.
Which is the best option? Total war or comprehensive peace?
(This article reflects the personal opinion of the author and does not reflect the official stand of the Management Association of the Philippines. The author is vice chair of the MAP agribusiness and countryside development committee, and executive director of the Center for Food and AgriBusiness of the University of Asia & the Pacific. Feedback at map@map.org.ph and rdyster@gmail.com. For previous articles, please visit map.org.ph.)