Lessons from a Hero for Indigenous People

A few weeks ago, I sat in on the Community Development class at EarthRights School Burma (ERSB). The class was facilitated by Mr. Benjamin D. Abadiano, a young hero for indigenous people in the Philippines and the president of the Assisi Development Foundation. According to his presentations during the class, the Assisi Foundation is helping hundreds of thousands of people adversely affected by the Philippines’ civil war to return home and rehabilitate their lives. Before he worked with the Assisi Foundation, he was working with poor communities in the Philippines, helping them establish community learning centers for young indigenous people. Currently, his community learning centers provide educational opportunities for hundreds of young indigenous people.  

After he graduated from Xavier University, he went to the indigenous communities with an exposure trip organized by a missionary group, and later he found himself happy there and decided to work for indigenous people in Mangyan communities. He started an education program for indigenous youth providing training in literacy, livelihoods and leadership. He started the program with little help from his friends in Manila and said, “the only thing at the time I had was my passion and blessing from God, and I am satisfied with it.”  

Mr Abadiano discusses alternative education with ERSB students

One of the subjects that grabbed our students’ attention was “Peace Path,” a peace building education program initiated by Abadiano.  Under the program, he organized negotiations between authorities, armed groups and local communities. In the civil war in the Philippines, as in Burma's civil war, local indigenous communities were often the victims of fighting between authorities and armed rebel groups, leading to the internal displacement of thousands of indigenous people. Abadiano initiated not only peace building education programs, to help end the conflict, but he also developed rehabilitation programs to help recover from the war by supporing livelihoods, organic agriculture, and livestock farming.

During the class, Adabiano shared a story that the students and I found very  exciting. While he was working for indigenous communities, he and one of his coworkers were kidnapped by an armed group. The kidnappers asked for a ransom of 5 millions pesos. He said he would rather die in the hands of the kidnappers than pay the ransom money. They were kept in the kidnappers’ camp for days. The situation was eventually resolved with help from community leaders and, despite those kinds of obstacles, he continued to work for the indigenous people of the Philippines. For his wholehearted devotion to indigenous communities in the Philippines, he was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership in 2004 (the same award received by ERI's Executive Director, Ka Hsaw Wa, in 2009).

The ERSB family felt blessed to have Mr. Abadiano teaching and sharing his inspiring work at our school. I hope that our ERSB students, and young people throughout Burma, will continue to work for peace and justice in our country with the same passion that Benjamin Abadiano has brought to the Philippines.