Yesterday, at the Mutya Room of the Sulo Hotel, peace process experts of the Young Muslim Professionals (YMPN) held a press conference at the Mutya Room of the Sulo Hotel in Quezon City. One of the YMPN organizers is a friend, Samira Gutoc, the group's Mindanao Convenor and one of those who helped us put out The Moro Times.

It's gives me a lot of hope for peace to hear how these young people describe themselves.

"A new wave of 'rebels' are saying NO TO WAR. They are the Young Muslim Professionals [www.ympn.org] who are yuppies with a cause, as they struggle to make their voices heard in the crafting of our nations' history.

"Their homelands in Sulu and Basilan are again in the headlines for being the site of kidnappings of international humanitarian and peace workers. Will Muslim yuppies have answers to the festering peace and order problem that has made their region the poorest of the poor?

"They want to be part of the solution to addressing one of the longest conflicts in the world but they also remember what their ancestors had died for to defend the country from foreign colonizers.

"They recall March 1968 as the historical trigger wherein Muslim soldier recruits were allegedly massacred, galvanizing the formation of the Moro liberation front, the MNLF.

"Not awaiting for the end the 11-year GRP-MILF Peace Talks, Muslim yuppies are creating peacetalks of their own. With their brand, 'We Get Things Done,' the YMPN have engaged celebrities, [people from] the Church, media, business, academe, diplomats and generals to take on peace as a national agenda. One of the Muslim yuppies is going to the Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations this February 18 to speak on Young Moro Professionals and their Peacebuilding Work in the Philippines.

"Billions of dollars in development assistance have been poured in Muslim Mindanao. But is the conflict there nearing end? It is in the interest of the international and national community through media to put Mindanao on its reporting map."

Mindanao statistics

These are statistics about the Mindanao conflict that YMPN reminds us of to move us to do something to make peace reign in Mindanao. In the Mindanao conflict 120,000-plus were killed in the 1970s and 80s. Civilians, children and women, affected by the conflict have numbered—(a) 1 million in 2000; (b) 430,000 in 2003; (c) 611,000 in 2008 and counting what the final figure is and what it will be in 2009. Scores of thousands of houses and property have beenburned.

KFR happens almost daily

Rep. Mujiv Hataman who represents the Anak Mindanao (or AMIN) partylist group, gave a privilege speech on February 9. His subject is that "Kidnap for ransom in Mindanao has become an urgent national security issue."

Congressman Hataman do-cumented one by one all the KFR in Mindanao in January 2008 to the present. Some get media attention like the kidnapping of broadcaster Ces Drilon and her team and companions and most recently those of the three International Red Cross volunteer workers. But others involve simple folk whose stories don't get an inch in the Manila dailies.

It turns out that there has been a kidnapping in Mindanao almost every day!

Rep. Hataman "pointed out that KFR is no longer just a nightmare but a bitter and fearsome reality that must be dealt with now—a reality that hurts all Filipinos but most of all those whose families are in Zamboanga, Ba-silan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

"We can no longer hide behind the excuse that all these are perpetrated by the Abu Sayyaf or put the blame on any other group. Even at the height of Abu Sayyaf strength in the 1990s till the first part of 2000, the situation never reached this point. It has never happened that almost every day there are victims of kidnapping. It now seems as if the kidnappers are just taking a stroll in our communities and would then just pull out and abduct anyone . . .

LGUs and PNP

"Which brings us to the question: What are our police forces and our local governments doing? These kidnappings happen not in remote or mountain areas. They occur right in town centers, markets, in residential areas.

"So, we would like to hear from the local government units and the Philippine National Police [PNP]. Where are they? Why can't they prevent these kidnappings? Are they watching over the citizenry or are they preoccupied by other concerns? Whose wellbeing is uppermost in their mandate, that of ordinary civilians or politicians with their personal interests?"

Then he urged the House to probe into the latest series of abductions and review government policies on KFR and inquire into the mandate, capacity and performance of the Police Anti-Crime Emergency Response (PACER), the LGUs, the PNP and "all other stake-holders in this most urgent alarming issue."

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