Seven year old Akmad bravely crawled under the running mill to get a morsel of corn. It was harvest season for some who were lucky enough to have land and crops in Maguindanao. And for Ishmael, and his siblings and neighbors, it was time to rush and salvage what they can from waste spewed out by a corn milling machine. If they gather enough for a day, it means they will have something warm inside their stomachs for dinner.

Food is scarce among Maguindaoans with little access to land and the means of production, a condition made even worse by conflict, whether between government forces and rebels, or between feuding warlord clans.

Sitting next to his sick grandchild, Bapa Candato, who is now 53, puts his thin and ailing hands on the child’s forehead. “He’s been sick and with high fever for more than a week now.” Outside, the temperature is a scorching 37 degrees, enough to start melting their tattered tent that has been worn out by the elements. He laments on the worsening living conditions inside the evacuation centers. “We have been living like this for years. In and out of evacuation centers… we want to go home.”

Johanna is just 17 and she sits only in a corner of their semi-permanent hut inside the evacuation center. Her stare is like a blank bullet piercing through anyone who dares to look in her eyes. “She’s afraid,” her mother told us while recounting their ordeal as they fled amidst a rain of heavy artillery bombarding their village. Only to find themselves building a hut inside an evacuation center next to an artillery fire base.

For centuries, Maguindanao and its people stood unconquered. Historically, it’s people has developed one of the most advanced and sophisticated social and political structure in the region long before the Spaniards arrived. It’s vast span of fertile land and untouched natural resources can feed the whole country many times over.

“There must be something wrong” said a colleague. “The poverty, the conflict, the killings, and all this political circus seems to be just the surface.” I agreed, and took off with my camera.

Related Story: http://space.jesaznar.com/?p=209

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