SECOND PLENARY SESSION ON KEY IHL ISSUES { lnternal Displacement r Ernesto Anasarias I 3 I Executive Director, Balay Rehabilitation U am tasked to say something about the phenomenon of internal displacement in the Philippines. I will also try to introduce the current initiative towards the passage of the lnternal Displacement Act which is the subject of interpolation this afternoon before the Senate. There are several reasons why internal displacement to persist One of these is definitely the To begin with, you know that displacement is one continues of the most palpable humanitarian issues in the country and in the other parts of the world. lt is such a huge concern that in 2007, the Philippine protracted nature of our conflict and non-distinctive Human Development Report came out with a study that due to internal displacemenl around 1/3 of the Bangsamoro people in Mindanao are already in the state of diaspora, scattered all over the archipelago. Of course you have seen that phenomenon here in Manila, Baguio and some parts of the Visayas, and it still remains to be a very pressing concern up to this day. You will see data produced by the protection cluster, headed by the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees wherein our organization Balay happens to be one of the mode of warfare. I remember hearing over the radio this morning that the NPA has burned down a backhoe in one of the mining sites in Palawan. lls unclear to me what was the reason behind if but l'm sure its orie of the examples that drive people to diaspora or seek refuge somewhere. This nondistinction between combatants and civilians is aggravated by the fact that civilians are being put into harms way; they are used as human shields or recruited as spies by the military during military operations. lts giving us a picture of risk not only to lives and safety but some other freedoms of displaced persons as well. members. In our country the lDPs have been better to September it listed some 263,213 individuals who have been displaced by various From January causes. And you can see at the map indicating the locations where lDPs came from. You can easily imagine that these places are not only vulnerable to conflict but to natural disasters and poverty as well. ln 2009 the lnternational Displacement Monitoring Center named the Phillppines as the fourth country in the world to produce the most numbers of displaced known as bakwets or evacuees, common names that are attributed to them. ln some areas they are called internal refugees but since 1988 the idea and the label internal displaced persons have found their way to the vocabulary and lexicon of humanitarian agencies and government agencies and the security in an attempt to come up with a comprehensive description or category for these people who have been forced to move out of the sectors as well, people. place of their origin because of particular reasons. concern in our country today. So under the deflnition provided by the UN guiding principle on lnternal Displacemenl there are three 0f course this year the number has tapered down due to the historic signing of the framework agreement FAB but nonetheless it remains a huge Proceedings of the Second National Summit on lnternational Humanitarian Law in the Philippines lL December 2012 @ i i