Giving voice to women for peace

IRENE SANTIAGO of the Mindanao Commission on Women and lead convener of the “Women’s Peace Table” (WPT) shares this account of a European diplomat from the front lines of the Balkan conflict.

It concerns an elderly woman named Sophia then living in Croatia, who went to the local church every morning, climbed the steps up the belfry and rang the church bell. But one morning, on her way to her daily chore, she found the church and steeple in ruins, the target of a bombing. Sophia found the bell on the ground, silenced. Undaunted, the old woman stood the bell upright and, taking hold of the ringer, proceeded to make the bell ring out as it did every morning.

Asked much later why she persisted in ringing the bell every day, Sophia had a simple answer: “It is our job to ring the bell of peace every day.”

And so, at the end of the rites marking the launching of the Women’s Peace Table, Santiago and other leaders of the WPT took hold of hand bells and proceeded to ring them, sounding out a call for “enduring, lasting peace” in Mindanao, and elsewhere in the country and in the world, where conflict still exists and persists.

The Women’s Peace Table aspires to be a parallel and “connecting” organization to the formal government and MILF tables that recently negotiated the GRP-MILF peace agreement. It “seeks to bring voices of women into the peace process,” its leaders said, bringing in women in the communities, “especially those affected by war and who long for peace to come soon” into the task of rebuilding after the dust of conflict settles. The table will also, they said, “act as a bridge among different sectors including those whose support for the final peace agreement will be crucial such as business, international institutions, the religious sector, media, labor, cooperatives, academe, widows and orphans, the elderly, and the youth.”

*** ASIDE from the Mindanao Commission on Women, laying out the settings for the Women’s Peace Table are the Philippine Council for Islam and Democracy and the Miriam College Women and Gender Institute (Wagi), which serves as the project secretariat. Funding support is provided by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

The WPT will also work with the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process and the National Steering Committee onWomen, Peace and Security.

Aside from providing an alternate sounding board and platform for women in Mindanao, the WPT also aims to mediate among “members of the public that want to ‘spoil’ the final peace agreement”; as well as gather a pool of experts on “post peace agreement reconstruction and recovery.”

“It’s been a two-year journey to highlight the role of women in the peace talks,” remarked Aurora Javate de Dios ofWagi. First on their list of activities will be a baseline study on the situation of women in six areas of Mindanao (which will be expected to constitute the bulk of the Bangsamoro homeland): Basilan, Tawi-Tawi, Sulu, Marawi, Zamboanga and North Cotabato.

The immediate task at the moment, De Dios added, was to “sell” the final peace agreement, the basic law and the Bangsamoro entity not just to lawmakers and local executives but also to the Filipino public. The agreement, she said, “still needs to be understood, accepted and embraced.”

*** INDEED, among the issues being raised in relation to the establishment of the Bangsamoro is that the status ofwomen in the Bangsamoro areas will be subjected to further strictures and limitations in keeping with the tenets of conservative, if not fundamentalist, Islam.

In the INQUIRER dialogue with the government and MILF peace panels, Raissa Jajurie, a lawyer and member of theMILF panel, assured us that in the process of birthing the basic law and the creation of the Bangsamoro, “there will be more opportunities for Moro women to talk about their own vision for the future.”

So perhaps bleeding hearts concerned about the fate of women living in the Bangsamoro (not just theMuslims but also the Christians, members of the cultural minorities and other religions) should realize that the work of ensuring, protecting and promoting women’s rights lies primarily in the hands of the women themselves.

I am thus encouraged by plans of the WPT to conduct consultations among women across all economic backgrounds, ethnicities and education levels to get a picture of where the women are, what they want and what role they are to play in shaping the future of the Bangsamoro.

*** “A TRUE artist and a dedicated activist,” is how the late Arvin Jimenez (no relation), more popularly known as “Tado,” is described by his friends and cofounders of “Dakila (Great),” an artists’ collective for “modern heroism.”

Tado, who diedwhile aboard a bus in Bontoc, Mountain Province, was working on a series of travel-themed video projects titled “40 Mountains” as part of his advocacy for the environment at the time of his death, his friends said. “His thought-provoking lines, witty commentary and signature style commanded the attention and rebellion of the public that sought for alternative heroes,” the collective said.

I especially enjoyed his deadpan brand of comedy, especially while skewering politicians and politics.

Another young artist joined Tado in his “last trip.” He was Andrew David “Debid” Sicam, who had made the trip with his wife and children and other artist-friends to celebrate son Amien’s birthday by “communing” with a tribal community.

A visual artist and musician, Sicam was part of the ethnicmusic group theMakiling Ensemble.

So sad that the crash of that Florida bus had to take the lives of two promising and gifted artists!