Last week, I had the delightfully challenging task of facilitating a two-day workshop on building the capacity of youth leaders to promote positive peace organized by the Peace911 under the Davao City Mayor’s Office. It was delightful because mentoring young people is one of my favorite things to do in the world. And it was challenging because there were around 80 of them all at once.
Yes, 80 leaders of Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) from Paquibato, Marilog, Calinan, and Poblacion districts in Davao City. Normally, an ideal class size would be 30 or 40, max, to give enough time for group interaction and sharing. But we had to adjust our session to accommodate double the number of participants.
At the end of the two-day workshop, youth leaders came up to me to say: “Two days are not enough, ma’am, it was so much fun and we want more!” I am happy it was a hit but I need at least a week to recover.
Ah, the boundless energy of youth! That is why they are such a potent force for peace.
The youth are not a niche constituency. Millennials and Gen Z make up 60.5 percent of registered voters (41.4 million out of 68.4 million), and Gen Z voters alone number over 18.3 million. In the Bangsamoro, roughly 60 percent of the population are young people. This is the largest generation of young people in the entire history of the Philippines. They are the present majority, and they are already the single largest voting bloc in the country.
This matters for peace because demographic weight translates into political leverage. The ASEAN Institute for Peace and Reconciliation states that “beyond a demographic dividend, youth in this region are also a peace dividend at the forefront of peace movements.”
Sadly, young Filipinos elected to the SK are being absorbed into a system that treats them not as leaders but as pawns — vote-delivery machines for traditional politicians who see youth councils as training grounds for loyalty, not service. The SK, which was designed to give this majority a voice at the grassroots, has too often been reduced to a patronage machine.
Former Senator Aquilino Pimentel, the author of the Local Government Code, first called for the SK’s abolition precisely because it was exposing young leaders to corruption rather than shielding them from it. The SK was supposed to be a training ground for democratic leadership, not a junior varsity for graft.
This must end. And it can only end if the youth themselves reclaim the SK.
Reclaiming the SK means more than running for office. It means running with a clear agenda rooted in the community’s real needs. It means auditing SK funds and publishing them. It means holding assemblies where young people actually speak, not just listen. It means building coalitions with student councils, faith-based youth groups, and civil society organizations that share the vision of positive peace. Building networks that work. It means rejecting the patronage of the mayor or congressman who offers campaign funds in exchange for future loyalty. Because that’s not help, that’s a leash.
This is where positive peace comes in. Positive peace is not just the absence of violence or fear of violence. It is the presence of “attitudes, institutions, and structures that create and sustain peaceful societies.” Positive peace creates “the optimum environment for human potential to flourish.
The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) identifies eight pillars of positive peace: (1) a well-functioning government; (2) equitable distribution of resources; (3) free flow of information; (4) good relations with neighbors; (5) high levels of human capital; (6) acceptance of the rights of others; (7) low levels of corruption; (8) a sound business environment.
Imagine if every SK used those eight pillars as a checklist. Instead of renting another basketball court, they could audit access to education and health services. They could run digital literacy programs. They could mediate disputes between rival youth groups.
The SK’s Barangay Youth Development Plan is already supposed to align with the Nine Centers of Participation, with peacebuilding built in. The infrastructure is there. We just need to use it. The legal and financial tools already exist. What’s missing is the mindset and the method.
So we did an experiment with our workshop last week. We integrated innovation and startup culture into the SK. We asked our youth leaders to pitch us practical solutions to real problems facing young people in their barangays based on the eight pillars of positive peace. We taught them design thinking and to imagine themselves as startup founders.
We grouped the 80 participants into eight groups and they all pitched eight innovative ideas for their startups. The original plan was we choose the top three pitches chosen by a panel of coaches and Upgrade Innolab, Davao’s leading startup incubator and accelerator, will make them the pioneering cohort for the Startup Kabataan (SK) program. But because all the ideas were good, the coaches decided to integrate all of the six application-based startup ideas into one and the remaining two others would compose the top three. Everybody got in.
So the Startup Kabataan will incubate the following solutions: (1) a dedicated mobile app for SK designed to connect SK members, make SK officials accountable and SK transactions transparent, be a platform where young people can network and find jobs, and access government services; (2) a mobile learning hub for disadvantaged youth (reinventing the concept of a school bus); and (3) a circular social enterprise that transforms agricultural waste into upcycled products made by young people.
These were all innovative solutions the SK leaders worked on together for just 20 minutes. They weren’t the usual projects which means when there is a shift in their mindset and they are introduced to new ways of doing things, their creativity is unleashed.
Innovation culture is not about gadgets. It’s about treating problems as solvable and young people as capable of solving them. None of these required permission from their barangay chair or from their congressman. They only required young leaders who saw a problem, found an innovative method, and used the tools already in their hands to solve them. Innovation and startup culture are how you build positive peace from the ground up.
So here’s the challenge to our SK leaders: the problems in your barangay weren’t designed by you, but they will be inherited by you. Which means they are yours to solve and yours to solve NOW. Not after graduation. Not after the next election. Not when someone older finally decides you’re ready.
What’s missing is not money or permission. It’s young people who refuse to wait for a seat at a table they already own. So pass the resolution. Fund the out-of-the-box idea. Post the receipts. File the complaint. Plant the garden. Build the app. Design the mobile learning hub and circular venture. Every pillar of positive peace you raise in your barangay is a brick pulled out of the wall of the old politics that keeps telling you to wait your turn. Your turn in now. Lead like the majority you already are. ###
