Street vendors

Fruits already sliced up - like green mangos, papayas, guave
Coconut juice
Ice cream
Peanuts (mane) in different tastes
Piña
MARUYA - fried bananas, sweet potatoes, ube & jackfruit
Candy
Chicheron - chips made out of pork skin

Lizard

I like Lizards because they eat mosquitos! You can find them everywhere... 

Anyway, last week I thought there was a mouse in my closet so I put a trap infront of it. Mice are quite common here, most people don't even care anymore when there is a mouse running thru the living room. My trap just consisted of a paper with poisened glue. Apparently there was no mouse in my closet but a Lizard! It was stuck on the paper. So I removed it and washed it. That gave me the opportunity to get a closer shot because they are pretty fast.

In the end, it lived happily ever after. But I don't think it will visit me again.. 

WFDA

The World Forum for Democratization in Asia (WFDA) is an international network and platform of democracy advocates in the region. It is forum committed to promoting and advancing the merits of democracy as a universal value and fundamental right to which all peoples in Asia are entitled and which is indispensable for sustainable peace and development. Specifically to this mission in Mindanao, the goal was to support democratization processes, encourage people's participation, seek international support, sharing experiences, address local concerns and support peace-building efforts by civil societies in conflict areas. Two teams were formed for two different trips. One went to the conflict area of Cotabato/Maguindanao and the other one to Zamboanga/Jolo. Basically the mission consisted of a mixture of kaonferences (from kaon (=food) and conference, because these two components go hand in hand in the Philippines!) with government representatives, refugees, civilians and civil society organizations to get a picture of the situation in Mindanao and Sulu.

As background might be said that the government keeps on the dialogue for more than 3 decades, first with the MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front; they had a "Final Peace Agreement" in 1996 which had the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) as a result) and now with the MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front). In the peace talks with the MILF, both sides developed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) which gives greater autonomy and a bigger

region defined as Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE; which includes a bigger region than the ARMM and even includes regions in Palawan) to the Moros. This MoA should be signed on Aug. 5 2008 but the Surpreme Court stopped the signing because of insufficient consultation of the affected areas and refusals from several provinces.

Shortly after the alleged signing of the MoA were the elections of the ARMM. Hence, it was reported that many of the elections were officially peaceful but at the same time most of them dishonest.

Because of the NOT signing of the MoA the situation between the MILF and the Philippine army became tense and in some regions they started shooting. Therefore there are many refugees and civilians (both Christians and Muslims) affected by these political conflict. With this background and the MoA or BJE as main discussion point we went on the mission to explore the situation in different regions and from different perspectives.

The mission ended in a press conference in Manila (we were even on TV but I didn't see it!). Last but not least we visited Nur Misuari, the leader and founder of the MNLF, in his house in Quezon City!

Zamboanga City

As part of the WFDA mission (World Forum for Democratization in Asia) I was in the team going to Zamboanga and Jolo. This was just a 3-day trip full of meetings. Our team consisted of 4 IID staffs, an American Professor (but resident of Japan) Paul, Nazwir from Indonesia (Aceh), Kristian from Spain and myself. Zamboanga City is also called "Asia's Latin City" because the Spanish influence is still quite visible or better hearable. In fact, they have a language which is called "Chabacano", it's a mix of Spanish and Filipino with a very strong Spanish tendency (The mayor gave us a Chabacano learning book). 

Besides, we had three "angels", in other words 3 Muslim women who took care of us, guiding our way. The first stop after our arrival at the airport was the City Hall. There we met with the Mayor of Zamboanga City, Celso Lobregat. 

He was prepared to meet us and held a powerpoint presentation

 regarding his position to the Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) and the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE). As we already read before entering the City Hall, he doesn't want an inclusion of Zamboanga in the BJE. 

After listening to his point of view we went on to a meeting with Civil Society organizations of Zamboanga City. This meeting was as well informing and interesting, although we all were tired from the early flight and traveling. 

The last stop was the Western Mindanao Command, a headquarter of the army.

 Of course, similar to all our other hosts, we were friendly welcomed, food and drinks were offered. But unfortunately, we were just "playing soft ball" because the army wasn't prepared to meet us and weren't able or refused to answer most of our ("hard ball") questions. 

Visiting Sulu

Coming from Zamboanga City, the Western Mindanao Command (army) gave us the advice not to go to Jolo, the Capitol of Sulu island, because we wouldn't have an army escort and might not be safe. Nevertheless, we took a night fairy for 8 hours and arrived in Jolo at around 4 am with trust to our fellow Octavio Dinampo (a University Professor living in Jolo and a peace advocat who is closely working together with IID; he was lately kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf in Sulu with a famous Filipino reporter). We thought of going for a low-profile-visit to be more safe. But at our arrival, Prof. Octa was welcoming us with a big banner! So much for low profile..

With our WFDA mission (World Forum for Democratization in Asia)

  we made up appointments with the Vice Governor of Sulu, Lady Ann. We discussed our issues with her and asked questions about the situation and position of Sulu regarding current happenings in Mindanao. After that we met the Mayor of Jolo and later on we discussed our findings with different Civil Society groups which apparently were all women. The inhabitants of Sulu are mainly Tausug, Muslims with a long history and many traditions (like i.e. mechanisms of conflict solution) which are still used today. The government wants to promote tourism and change the "terroristic" image but the local civilians are complaining about a lack of basic services. Both, Government and Civil Society emphasized that Sulu is different from Mindanao but safe. Both parties were also concerned about the heavy militarization on this small island. There are about 3000 U.S. and Filipino soldiers running after 50 Abu Sayyaf terrorists (who are mostly just teenagers) in Sulu. Locals are used to see guns around and although they have nothing to do with the operations going on, they often get labelled as terrorists by outsiders. After all, we had very interesting discussions, learned a lot about Sulu from different perspectives and didn't see any Abu Sayyaf. Maybe because we were escorted by six heavily armed police men and some secret agents from Prof. Octa. Octa took really good care of us, we were even able to visit his house and eat lunch there. The food variety and Sulu specialities were amazing (Sulu Durian is really masarap)! His house is located close to the sea, that means he has a beach as backyard! Unfortunately, our stay was only planned for one day and we had to leave in the evening back to Zamboanga City.