Honest, orderly and peaceful are adjectives that have yet to describe elections in the Philippines. Yet many still see the election period as a time of hope, of the possibility of change.
But for the more than a thousand families still staying in the 13 evacuation centers and relocation sites in Datu Piang town, even the illusion of hope that the May elections might bring remains elusive.
Displaced by the fighting between government troops and Moro rebels or by rido, the clan wars that break out every now and then, the bakwit live in hunger, unable to find enough work to sustain their families.
They do try to cope, the women tending makeshift stores or weaving mats, the men driving trisikad, bicycles with sidecars. But this is not enough, so they remain dependent on food rations from aid agencies like the World Food Program.
Disease continues to take its toll among the bakwit. The makeshift shelters they live in hardly keep out the elements. Adequate sanitation is almost impossible to achieve in the crowded camps.
The bakwit would like nothing more than to return home. But they cannot, not yet.
The first wave of evacuees – from the neighboring towns of Aleosan, Midsayap, Kabuntalan and Datu Saudi – arrived in Datu Piang on August 19, 2008, fleeing fighting between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the military.
As the violence worsened, reaching the outlying villages of Datu Piang, the town played host to 19,455 families, or 97,275 individuals, crammed into 26 makeshift evacuation centers.
While most of the bakwit have gone home, Ed Diesto, the local government’s information officer, says those still in the 13 evacuation centers are unable to because of the threat of resurgent violence or because there is nothing more to go back to except their burned homes and ravaged farms. A number of the families also remain traumatized by the loss of members whose fate remains unknown after their arrest by the military.
The bakwit know elections are drawing near. But none of them knows how to vote in the country’s first automated polls. Asked if they were aware of the new system of voting, they replied with blank stares. No one, not the Commission on Elections, not the local government, not the NGOs, has taught them about the new system.
A number do hold out hope that the elections might bring change, that a leader will be chosen who will end their poverty, who will bring an end to the bombing of their communities, who will allow them to return home.
But, when asked, most of them had no idea who the candidates for national positions were, except for Loren Legarda, who paid a visit last year and handed out some food relief. Those who own transistor radios only know who is running from campaign jingles.
Many of them also remain mired in a system in which their choices are dictated by the mayor, their village leaders, or even their evacuee team leaders.
Nor do local politicians seem to have any qualms about exploiting the evacuees’ plight for political gain. At one of the relocation sites, Aleosan natives Nuraissa Hassan and Norodin Masulot, the latter a first time voter, said they had been made to register in Datu Piang, although both wish to vote in their hometown.
Elections and hope? For the bakwit, the two just do not go together.
Mabel Carumba