Mindanao, Manila journalists do joint coverage on plight of bakwits

DATU PIANG, Maguindanao (MindaNews/27 June) – At least 40 Mindanao and Manila-based journalists are participating in a joint coverage on the plight of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) on June 29 to July 1 here and in Cotabato City.
Dubbed “S.O.B.” for “State Of the Bakwits,” the activity is intended to be a run-up to President Arroyo’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 27.

This will be the last SONA of Ms Arroyo as President as she is supposed to step down at noon of June 30 next year.
Ms Arroyo vowed an “all-out peace” when she assumed the Presidency from the ousted president, Joseph Estrada in 2001.

At least 29,000 IDPs, better known here as “evacuees” or “bakwits” have remained in Datu Piang’s poblacion, many of them for the last ten months since the renewed skirmishes between government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) after the aborted August 5, 2008 signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD).

Evacuees have been complaining that relief goods have become fewer and far between.

Records also show there are more deaths from what would have been preventable diseases, especially among children in evacuation centers, than from actual armed encounters.

Amidst this humanitarian crisis are disturbing reports of alleged human rights violations like food blockade, illegal arrests, disappearances and summary executions.

Non-government and humanitarian organizations, even media, are also reportedly being prohibited from going to evacuation centers in the guise of protecting them from being caught in the crossfire.

The evacuee situation is likely to continue unless the government and MILF return to the negotiating table.

“The joint coverage aims to bring the issue of the IDPs to the President herself, to remind her there are still bakwits waiting to return home and hopefully, that she will act on the situation before another child dies from preventable disease or from malnutrition, in the evacuation centers,” the letter of invitation from the organizers said.

The joint coverage is being organized by the Mindanao ComStrat and Policy Alternatives in cooperation with MindaNews, the Center for Community Journalism and Development, the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines, the Peace and Conflict Journalism, and the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, with the assistance of The Asia Foundation. (MindaNews)