PEACE BY PEACE
As the Philippines continues its crusade toward achieving a just and lasting peace, the PAyapa at MAsaganang PamayaNAn (PAMANA) program works at the forefront of the nation’s peace and development agenda.
The PAMANA program, facilitated by the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity (OPAPRU), is the national government’s flagship program designed to uplift depressed communities affected by conflict.
Among OPAPRU’s partner implementing agencies are the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), the National Irrigation Administration (NIA), the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the Philippine National Police (PNP), the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), the Department of National Defense (DND), the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF), the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), the Department of Health (DoH) and PhilHealth, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), the Department of Energy (DoE), the National Housing Authority (NHA), the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), and the Department of Education (DepEd). The participation of most of these agencies fall under the scope of the Inter-Cabinet Cluster Mechanism on Normalization (ICCMN) which was formed in 2019.
The OPAPRU also forms partnerships with other national government agencies and local government units (LGUs), civil society organizations (CSOs), and multilateral mechanisms in the implementation of the PAMANA program interventions.
The year 2024 has been a remarkable period for the OPAPRU in carrying out the PAMANA program. It is a breakthrough year, as PAMANA saw a revival after a budget allocation totaling ₱5 billion was allocated for it. It is the largest allocation in recent years. A total of 124 infrastructure projects, covering 88 municipalities, are now being implemented from roads, bridges, and water systems. A sum of ₱1.24 billion was allocated to the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) alone while ₱3.68 billion was allocated to various regions affected by the CPP-NPA-NDF, with substantial portions dedicated to other peace agreement areas.
Both houses of Congress approved last September the OPAPRU’s proposed budget in the National Expenditure Program for 2025. The momentum generated by this year’s PAMANA allocation will be carried out next year with an even more ambitious agenda. With the same budget allocation of ₱5 billion approved under the NEP for the fiscal year 2025, PAMANA now aims to bring a total of 260 infrastructure projects across 120 municipalities — doubling its initiatives in 2024. These projects are intended to focus on agricultural productivity support infrastructure, roads, water systems, electrification, and more.
Aside from the approved NEP for FY 2025, the OPAPRU has also requested an additional budget of ₱5 billion to intensify PAMANA projects in the BARMM, CARAGA, CAR, Bicol, and Samar provinces, with a particular focus on areas requiring more peace investments.
With these significant budget milestones for FY 2024 and FY 2025, OPAPRU is committed to making the most of PAMANA's rejuvenation, ensuring that the program becomes more dynamic and strategic in developing more conflict-resilient communities.
The relationship among the agencies collaborating under the ambit of PAMANA is that of complementation. The bigger national agencies are concerned about the big ticket interventions while PAMANA takes care of the interconnections or the proverbial last mile for an inclusive development. PAMANA concentrates on former rebels, their families and communities and other vulnerable and isolated areas. Many of these are indigenous people (IP) communities where exploitation is prevalent.
PAMANA delivers roads and bridges, water systems, and school subsidies. Its work builds upon people-to-people interventions and social preparation activities. PAMANA is about the integration of the strength of organizations — NGAs, LGUs, CSOs, POs — working together for the people who are targeted not as a beneficiary per se but as partners for the attainment of sustained peace.
PAMANA is not a duplication. The work of PAMANA may reside in the same categories as what other national agencies are working on, yet there is hardly any duplication. The complementation rather helps in creating synergies. The DPWH, for example, builds national highways and major bridges. The DA builds farm-to-market roads. The NTF-ELCAC concern themselves with barangay roads. PAMANA handles provincial and municipal thoroughfares that connects highways and bridges with provincial and municipal roads, to smaller farm-to-market roads and barangay roads.
The infrastructure supports the other areas of development that OPAPRU tackles in its daily grind. PAMANA, and therefore OPAPRU, as aided by infrastructure developments aims to better the conditions of the stakeholders in peace and development focused areas through sustainable livelihood programs, social protection and general well-being.
Along things like electrification, water systems, food security and health management, PAMANA also addresses factors that contribute to human development, like capacity building. Recently, OPAPRU signed its support of IP students taking up their degrees in medicine from the Mindanao State University (MSU). The program will support more IP students who are planning to embark on advance studies to inspire other IP students to pursue higher education.
OPAPRU navigates peace and development with indicators embodied in our monitoring systems, the provincial development programs and the Community Based Management System (CBMS) which DILG continues to promote and develop. We look at measurements like the Poverty Index, the Human Capital (and Development) Index, and the Peace Index as additional guideposts for our peace journey.
We in OPAPRU, along with our partners, through the leadership of our chief peace architect, President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr., are committed toward the path of peace and prosperity -toward the path of a Bagong Pilipinas.
(Secretary Carlito G. Galvez, Jr. is the presidential adviser on peace, reconciliation, and unity.)