CELEBRATING PEACE. Moro women celebrate the Kalilintad festival with traditional dance and music in Labangan, Zamboanga del Sur on Tuesday (March 5, 2024). The municipal government organized the festival to foster peace and unity among the tri-people living in the town. (Photo courtesy of Barangay Tapodoc)
PAGADIAN CITY, Zamboanga del Sur – To help promote peace initiatives in Zamboanga del Sur's 71-year-old Labangan town, local leaders hold the Kalilintad Festival annually every first week of March.
"Kalilintad" is a Meranaw word for "Peace," and Labangan Mayor Eduardo Relacion passed a municipal ordinance institutionalizing the celebration of peace and unity of the tri-people in the area – the indigenous people Subanens, the ethnic Moro people who embraced Islam, and the local settlers.
Because of its religious ethnocultural and religious makeup, Labangan does not celebrate the more common Christian-inspired annual fiesta, and the "Kalilintad" Festival is the town's version of an inclusive cultural festivity. Relacion said on Tuesday.
The celebration aims to promote peace, unity, and harmony among its residents, while providing a platform for fostering understanding, tolerance, and cooperation within the community, he said.
In the past two decades, he said, their town had the image of unstable peace and order, "where people felt unsecured, particularly the travelers passing the Labangan road at night as the town was then known for killings and illegal drugs."
The unstable peace and order had negatively impacted the town's development, he said, adding that "Labangan was a drug capital in the province in the past two decades, where rampant transactions on illegal drugs happen in the municipality."
"If there are illegal drugs, there is stealing, there is abuse of women and children," the mayor added.
Among the worst incidents that shaded the image of the town was the killing of then-mayor Ukol Talumpa, who was shot dead at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3 on Dec. 20, 2013.
Talumpa was a political rival of former mayor Wilson Nandang, and one of the causes of their dispute was illegal drugs, a police official said.
Talumpa defeated Nandang in the 2013 local elections. Before his murder, Talumpa survived two attempts on his life.
Recently, the town developed the image of a rising community after investors began coming in to build stores and warehouses, Relacion said.
Local leaders have also managed to settle several two "rido" cases or clan feuds, and currently, there is zero "rido" within the municipality.
Unity of the tri-people: the Moro, Subanens, and settlers helped much in sweeping away Labangan's bad image, with the understanding of how development could help improve every family's status, he said. (PNA)
