Kukum Kalilintad and the Council of Elders: Culturally Rooted Peacebuilding and Rido Settlement in a Former Conflict-Affected Municipality in Mindanao, Philippines

This study examines how a former conflict-affected municipality in Mindanao, the Philippines, rebuilt peace through culturally rooted mechanisms. It is guided by three objectives: to identify the local actors and mechanisms through which clan conflict (rido) was settled in Palimbang, Sultan Kudarat, between 2019 and 2026; to examine how customary and faith-based authority enabled the reconciliation and reintegration of former conflict actors; and, to determine what the case contributes to scholarship on hybrid and locally grounded peacebuilding. Although research on the Mindanao conflict has documented how rido sustains everyday insecurity even where larger peace agreements hold, far less is known about how individual local government units actually settle such disputes on the ground. Using a historical case study design, the study draws on a focus group discussion with four municipal department heads, key informant interviews with business, Army, and police informants, and a life-history testimony from a former rebel turned public servant, comprising nine informants in total, triangulated against documentary sources and analyzed through reflexive thematic and historical narrative analysis. The findings show that security stabilization functioned only as an enabling condition, while the decisive work of peacebuilding was performed through rido settlement, a locally devised mechanism called Kukum Kalilintad, an active Council of Elders, the moral authority of the religious sector, and the culturally mediated reconciliation and reintegration of former conflict actors. This study argues that Kukum Kalilintad operates as a standing, first-instance settlement forum that fuses customary adat and agama authority with formal local-government structures, and therefore constitutes a distinctive model of hybrid peace infrastructure; it further argues that reintegration in Palimbang was achieved through community recognition rather than programmatic disarmament. The case extends the literature on the local turn and hybrid peacebuilding by showing how a single LGU can institutionalize customary justice without erasing it.

Rido Settlement, Customary Justice, Hybrid Peacebuilding, Council Of Elders

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