Crazy, lovely women
WOMEN can’t stop loving. They go and involve themselves in works that do not even pay them enough to sustain their needs. They would even dare the devil, if it’s the last thing they need to do just to fulfill the yearning to care for the earth and nurture its children.
Best of all women are most visible in the work for peace, even if it entails hard labour and many sleepless nights because it is asked of her.
One such kind of woman is currently confined in a military camp after she underwent a life-threatening surgery in her spine. She was “captured” even if she was not a fugitive, and incarcerated in a prison cell after trumpedup charges were filed against her, even if such charges were not proven true. What did she do to merit such suspicion?
She was a mentor and a Lumad advocate who was helping the children of the Indigenous Peoples attain education in ways that the imagination of the Department of Education officials could not stretch beyond what was mandated. Like many other women among the sisters of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines who shared her sentiments and thoughts for the poor children of the IP communities, Ms. Amy Pond went out of her way to serve this sector, not having any second thoughts that her work would pull her away from her own beautiful daughters.
Two other wonderful women I know are into the most challenging role of trying to untangle the mess in the Peace Process. These are Atty. Angela Librado-Trinidad who is sitting as the lone woman negotiator in the GPH panel and Atty. Fatima Adin who is a legal Counsel of the NDFP panel. Both lawyers who are great friends, are young and energetic in each of their respective tasks.
Their intelligence and wit not only contributes a great deal in pushing and even speeding up the negotiations in the peace talks, but it is clear that their cheery countenance must have ‘infected’ and positively influenced not only the negotiations but also the supporters and the whole atmosphere of the peace process.
We know for a fact that the peace talks is not a walk in the park, and one can imagine it being intense at some point as grave issues are discussed in detail. It could have been nerve-wracking at some point, especially at times when they would have been informed about the goings-on on the ground back home, and hearing complaints being aired by aggrieved sectors among the IPs and others.
Thus, taking all these things in consideration, it must have been hard for all of them in both negotiating panels to make any positive steps towards peace, and yet, as reported by Atty. Librado-Trinidad, they have had really positive agreements during the third round of their negotiations.
Hearing all these things thus, a participant stood up to make a recognition on these laudable women who never stopped to hope and to work for peace, whose courage to face gargantuan challenges not only in the negotiating table but more especially with their families was beyond compare. But then, women, wherever they are will always save the day for humanity, whatever it takes.