As I keep on saying to anyone who’d listen, a pandemic PhD is not something I’d wish on my worst enemy. Nevertheless, have been very clear since the beginning that the only way I would spend three++ years of my life on a project is to make sure that the effort addressed real needs on the ground.

Been v. fortunate to have gotten so much support, financially, spiritually, and otherwise. The PhD is primarily funded by the joint Philippine Department of Science and Technology – British Council’s joint Newton Agham scheme (incidentally here’s the #NewtonAgham closing anthology I recently edited, lol), with an explicit agreement that research outputs will be optimised for policy use. Given the sensitive nature of the topic (and the practical need to secure operational funding), activities in BARMM were facilitated through multiple research agreements signed between myself and relevant government institutions, INGOs, and CSOs, all of which have been cleared with DOST-SEI, the British Council, and the University of Cambridge Department of Land Economy. These agreements also facilitated fieldwork funding, data access, and collaborative partnerships with local research assistants and enumerators, many of whom are IDPs themselves. As of present writing, five partner organisations have signed a research and data sharing agreement granting me full permission to use anonymised data for scholarly publication as part of the PhD project, in academic journals and/or books, with full acknowledgment of the involved organisations. with the proviso that I would also produce policy papers ahead of the academic manuscript for immediate use.

So far, we’ve got at two publicly-available policy reports out the door, each corresponding to multiple chapters in the final PhD manuscript. Posting this here given recent requests, and in the spirit of full transparency.

Fernandez, M.C. (2023) Land rights, displacement, and transitional justice in the Bangsamoro: Insights from household-level mapping in Marawi City and Maguindanao. Davao City: Initiatives for International Dialogue.

Land dispossession is acknowledged as a root cause of historical and contemporary conflict in the Bangsamoro that must be jointly addressed by a wide range of stakeholders: the Government of the Philippines (GPH); the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF); the recently-created Parliament of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM); relevant provincial, municipal, and barangay authorities; alongside traditional leaders, grassroots institutions, and clans. In response, this report summarizes findings from rapid community and household-level participatory and IDP-led mapping processes and dialogues conducted from late 2021 to mid-2022 in displaced neighborhoods in Marawi City, Lanao del Sur and South Upi and Firis Complex in Maguindanao. We present parcel-level evidence on the effects of protracted displacement and land tenure instability on Mranaw, Tëduray-Lambangian, and Maguindanaon internally-displaced persons (IDPs), along with concrete recommendations to aid in the resolution of land conflicts and dispossession, from the point-of-view of displaced residents themselves.

Download: https://iidnet.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/IID-Land-Research-updated.pdf

Fernandez, M.C. (2021) Land Governance as Moral Governance: Options for housing, land and property policy reform in the Bangsamoro transition. A Policy Brief. Cotabato City: Institute of Bangsamoro Studies with support from The Asia Foundation and USAID.

This document summarises the results of policy research undertaken by the Institute of Bangsamoro Studies (IBS) on the opportunities and constraints faced by the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) related to housing, land and property (HLP) policy, with the goal of identifying executive and legislative actions that can be undertaken by the Bangsamoro Parliament in partnership with the Central Government, local communities and other actors.

Download: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YFfyK7FqlqBA6GQ5jAEydexS7ppLCwwM/view?usp=sharing

At least one or two more public reports should be out the door before the year is out, apart from the academic versions. Fingers crossed.