THE QUEST FOR PEACE

A peace pact is not just any other ritual. For the indigenous peoples, it is considered sacred and binding for life. Called by a host of ethic terms for the various ethnographic tribes, the ceremony embodies the collective stand of the tribe or cluster of tribes in a tribal community.

Indigenous peoples in Mindanao are basically peace-loving people. They co-exist with other beings without unnecessary desire for hatred and war. In the event of conflicts whether internal or external, they have a traditional way of resolving issues — the PEACE PACT.

Depending on the preferences of the tribe, a peace pact starts with a ritual where animals (chicken or pig or both) are sacrificed to “cleanse” the participants and to “appease the spirits”, requesting their guidance to the ritual. Other elements like native chicken eggs, salt, betel nuts, native wine, rice grains and other traditional stuff are present, each one symbolizing something important such as life, promise, territory, etc. It involves “breaking off from the past” to assure that past conflicts will never resurface between the two parties to the agreement. This is usually symbolized by using a ‘sabli’ or jungle bolo to cut the ‘uway’ or rattan stick; or by breaking plates with a rock; or by sacrificing an animal and placing it inside a rolled mat with broken jars; or by any means a particular tribe involved prescribes. The symbolism is almost the same: the chosen ritual element must be reduced to a form that cannot be returned to its original state because it stands for the agreement that past is past and it can never be revived. Once an issue is resolved, it is finished.

During the Tribal Assemblies conducted in 34 cluster IP communities in 2008, the MIPCPD and Task Force ‘Gantangan’ became witnesses to (and were jointly instrumental in) the forged peace agreements between the tribes and the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Each one was “preserved” and turned into works of art for a lasting legacy of the historic events…