Her childhood memory of the small hut where she and her four siblings lived together with her parents was still vivid in the mind of Jean Salazar-de la Torre, the eldest daughter of cacao farmers Ricardo and Erlinda Salazar.
The inviting sweet aroma of ‘sikwate’ or chocolate drink looks deliciously irresistible as it is slowly poured through a ‘batirol’ (a traditional wooden tool to make a chocolate drink), still steaming hot and mouth-watering greeted the visiting PEF team to the cacao processing and development center of Chocolate de San Isidro (CSI). Without doubt, Sikwate speaks for itself, even if one has little background how this local product has been touted to have built the town of San Isidro.
The challenges being posed by the continuing imposition of Martial rule on the poorest in Mindanao doesn’t seem to deter the members of the Sisters Association in Mindanao (SAMIN) who are renewing their commitment to serve those whom they called “God’s Anawim” (Greek word for God’s poor).
The deliberate destruction of an ethnic group as the encyclopaedia defines ETHNOCIDE had been and still is being practiced by despotic regimes, then and now, even if government apologists persist to deny so. The ravage of the military complex against the indigenous communities all over Mindanao could never be justified by the Duterte administration that has finally succumb to the dictates and the whims of its military masters.
Each time I give birth to my children, I die a little. I was, and still am ready to give up my life for them if need be to protect…