Mindanao evacuees in the dark about elections, docu project bares

Many people living in evacuation centers in war-torn areas of Mindanao don’t know a lot about the upcoming May 10 elections, a Church-led documentation project revealed recently. “They [the evacuees] do not know who the candidates are. They do not even know how to vote in an automated election. They are still trapped in the practice of voting who their leaders tell them to vote," said Amabel Carumba, one of the project participants and a member of the Mindanao Peoples’ Peace Movement, as reported on the website of the Union of Catholic Asian News. Carumba, who produced a film on the May 10 elections through the eyes of the evacuees, showed the displaced people’s indifference to the upcoming polls. While a few expressed hope that the election would bring about change, Carumba said “many find no significance" in it. The Church-led training program gathered 20 people in Mindanao in a short photography and video course conducted by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate Media Apostolate. The course aimed at documenting the varied views of the people of Mindanao on the upcoming elections. Among the participants were peace workers, a journalist, and residents from the southern provinces of Maguindanao, North Cotabato, and Zamboanga del Sur, as well as Cotabato and Iligan cities. “The trainees will form part of our network in Mindanao that will help us create a well informed, vigilant, and empowered society," Roman Catholic priest Fr. Eduardo Vasquez Jr. said as quoted in the UCAN website. “What is important for them is food to eat," Vasquez said, adding that he expected the polls to be “violent" in the three provinces earlier cited. “Since they evacuated, they have lost the sense of dignity. We have to make them feel that they are still part of our community – our country," Vasquez said. Among the places documented on film was Datu Piang town in Maguindanao, where 1,000 families live in evacuation centers. Vasquez serves as parish priest to 200 Catholic families living in the predominantly Muslim town.—Nikka A. Corsino/JV, GMANews.TV