DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 12 November) — “I am the expert here because I am not peaceful but Paquibato is peaceful,” Vice-President Sara Duterte told a gathering of civil society leaders in Mindanao on Friday, as she narrated how local initiatives under her term as mayor had brought peace to Paquibato.
The Vice President, concurrent Education Secretary, was vice mayor of Davao City from 2007 to 2010 and mayor from 2010 to 2013 and 2016 to 2022.
In her first term as mayor, she earned the “Puncher” title in 2011 after punching the face of a sheriff during a demolition she had asked to be delayed as she was still attending to residents affected by floods.
She spoke about Peace 911 and how “we succeeded in eliminating the insurgency problem” in Paquibato, a hinterland district which was a hotbed of insurgency for decades,
She recalled that when she was elected mayor in 2010, “I realized that the problems of the 1990s were still there during my term and it was already 2010 and I was already 30 years old.”
Duterte’s father, Rodrigo, was mayor for 22 years in the city, from 1988 to 1998, 2001 to 2010 and 2013 to 2016.
She narrated the trauma she felt as mayor, having had to deal with two insurgency-related deaths and how these had pushed her to work for peace – the death of a fish vendor who was hit by shrapnel as he was passing by an area where communist rebels burned the firm’s plant box, and the death of Jay, a soldier who as ambushed in Paquibato – and how she kept telling their loved ones “I’m sorry.”
Saying sorry to the wife of the fish vendor and the mother of the soldier, she said, was something she felt she had to do, even flying to Antique to sit down with the family of the soldier. Later, however, she said she was angry because she was saying sorry when it was not she who burned the plant box or order its burning or ambush fellow Filipinos.
She said she always shares these stories “of why I Invested so much time sa Peace 911 in Paquibato.”
Duterte noted her efforts in Paquibato might fail, especially since the problem has been there even before she was born. “And then I said, if I fail, because there was never a solution there but I said I will not let this pass without me investing my name, my work.”
She said she chanced upon Irene Santiago, former chair of the government implementing panel in the peace process with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, who helped her with Peace 911. She recalled having asked Santiago to help her navigate her way in peace work “because I am not a peaceful person.”
In Borongan, Samar which she visited recently, Duterte said she narrated the same stories “and told her audience, “it can be done because I am standing here in front of you, sharing my experience in what I did. It only needs a heart, a very strong heart to start it and continue on when things become difficult.”
But Duterte acknowledged the fragility of peace in Paquibato. “One mistake there .., could undo the four years that we invested in winning peace in Paquibato.” (Ferdinandh B. Cabrera / MindaNews)
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