GUINDULUNGAN, MAGUINDANAO DEL SUR โ Beneath the gently oscillating canopy of young coconut trees, Abdulpatah Bato Aliman washes the grime from his callused hands. Resplendent with corn stalks, fruit trees, and vegetable plots border his agricultural land. A chorus of laughter from the children rings in the background.
It is a world different from the environment of his youthโbullet fire and blasts and cries of the wounded.
Once feared with the sobriquet of โPsychoโ in the battlefields of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Abdulpatah now answers another name in his village: farmer, teacher, provider.
“Before, I carried a rifle. Now, I carry seedlings,” he tells me with a smile. “Farming brings life. War only destroys it.”
From war to peace
The early 2000s found Mindanao in flames. The government declared an โall-out warโ against the MILF and laid waste to villages and uprooted thousands. To a young Abdulpatah in Macasampen, armed struggle seemed the only choice to defend land and identity.
โAs a Mujahideen, defending our homeland wasnโt only a duty but life itself,โ he reminisced. โI was prepared to die for the Bangsamoro cause.โ
But years of resistance left marks too deep to disregardโfriends lost, families broken, youth stolen away from them. The weight of constant conflict led him to reconsider the cost of the struggle.
When the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) in 2014 became a signed accord, Abdulpatah had discovered his eureka moment. Senior leaders had implored warring groups to give peace a try. He put his gun aside.
Seeds of change
Reintegration was stressful. โPsychoโ had been in war, not in agriculture. But with the help of the Philippine Coconut Authority-BARMM, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Agrarian Reform (MAFAR), and local government programs, he learned to cultivate land instead of police it.
Today, the land that he owned tells of that transformation:ย 6,750 strong coconut trees; 500 fruit treesโmango, lanzones;ย 3 hectares of corn; andย thriving vegetable plots
The farm provides for his family and the education of his children. It has also become a symbol of opportunity for hundreds of former fighters that now trade guns with garden tools.
โIn Sha Allah, in the next two to three years, we will be harvesting the full benefit of these trees,โ he stated with a gleam of hope in his eyes.
Changing perceptions
Abdulpatah knows the stigma that ex-combatants carry.
โBefore, the city government thought that we were threatsโpower-grabbing, disrupting,โ he said. โBut I invited them to the camps where they listened to our stories. Little by little, attitudes changed.โ
Now, he trains the rest making the same jump from war to livelihood. His work is no longer combatant but unifier, his mantra a simple one: that the true victory of the Bangsamoro is peace.
Hope trees
In the shade of the trees he planted, Abdulpatah often reflects on his serendipitous life experience.
โBefore, I carried a gun and I was busy with the plans of war. Now I plant treesโsymbols of hope. Hope for my family and for each of the Bangsamoro.โ
It is a testament that the peace is not written in policies or treaties but is planted, watered, and nurtured in the earth by the very ones that only before had known war.
For the man who was once dubbed โPsycho,โ the true fight wasnโt waged with bullets but with roots. (with Bangsamoro Multi-media Network)
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