“Give a man fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime.”

It’s an often repeated saying when talk is centered on livelihood and how we try to help others get over life’s hardships, and I saw how it works… in the hinterlands of Basilan.

In a small sitio in Maluso, a cooperative of fishermen and farmers set up about 20 years ago with an initial membership of over a hundred heads of families is slowly making life a lot easier for former MNLF rebels who had come back to society after former president Fidel Ramos and Nur Misuari signed the peace agreement in 1996.

Some of those who surrendered may have gone back to the hills as rebel fighters after a long wait, but this group – who saw how refreshing it felt to see the fruits of farming and fishing instead of going to war – had persisted.

Now, the cooperative has more than 900 member-families, all able to support their own economic needs and able to send their children to school – and all believing that there is a better life awaiting them and their families after years of conflict.

It is an inspiring story amidst what is presently being told by mainstream news about Basilan these days. In the mainstream, you’ll read about the army firing howitzers into Abu Sayyaf lairs in Tipo-Tipo, not too far away from Maluso. You’ll read about a group of ASG bandits raiding Tipo Tipo poblacion because of the incessant bombardment. But seldom will you hear about the Basilan Fisherfolk and Farmers Cooperative in Sitio Garlaya, Barangay Batungan in Maluso and the way it has made a big turnaround for the lives of these men and their families who were used to war and didn’t know a thing about farming.

I spoke with the coop chairman, former MNLF “Kumander” Benzar Asula, and learned that from a small farm of about half a hectare when they started farming string beans and ampalaya in 2013, the farm has grown into more than 18 hectares, and it is still growing; they have earned enough from the vegetable harvests over the years to be able to buy the adjoining lots and convert them into farms.

Benzar and his family is now able to earn up to P200,000 per harvest from the string beans along, which takes about two months only from planting to harvest. And that’s from a capital input of less than P15,000, he says.

Benzar’s coop members earn a little below his family’s income, but only because they started planting later than he did. It won’t be long before some of them could be earning more than he does, and keeping themselves committed to supporting the cooperative to which they give part of their income to keep the organization running.

They’re now planning to plant a few hectares to cabbage and potatoes on the hills of Maluso which Benzar says he has tested and confirmed could grow Baguio vegetables.

Apart from the vegetables, the cooperative runs a limited-capacity sardine processing plant where they are able to produce at least 700 bottles of Spanish-style sardines per day, limited in the sense that they are not able to access credit that much. After years of war, even the banks in Basilan wouldn’t trust with the size of credit that would allow them to expand their production capacity. It was only the Department of Agriculture that lent them some money to put up the processing plant, and now they need a bigger one.

Benzar and his coop members have been assisted in many phases of their project by locally-assigned army commanders who believe part of winning the war against lawless elements is winning the hearts and minds of the people. And they have been able to do that in Sitio Garlaya, and in other areas around Basilan. Once in a while, the army commander is able to provide them a few hand tractors at a time, and that goes a long way for the farmers of the sitio.

It may be in Basilan or any other place, but stories like this are truly inspiring and should be emulated. For Benzar and his group, it has not always been smooth sailing; even at this point, they need help because they can’t expand further unless some kind of support for mass transport for their produce is provided so they can send the vegetables on a daily basis to the capital city, Isabela, and to the rest of Basilan. Right now, they use their motor bikes for the purpose. But the potential of even exporting the produce off to the Zamboanga peninsula is there, because at the rate they are going, at some point the harvest will be too much for Basilan’s needs.

And they’ll surely have good use for a bigger Spanish sardines processing plant, so they could produce much more than 700 bottles a day.

If the Department of Agriculture wants some inspiring stories to encourage people elsewhere to plant and harvest, Sec. Manny Pinol should pay Benzar and the coop a visit one day. And he’ll see how the former warriors of the MNLF in Maluso have actually traded their guns for plowshares, with effective results.