At 70, she talks of rape at age 6

It came as a shock: the revelation of Assumption College president Carmen “Pinky” Valdes, that she had been sexually abused over a period of two years, starting when she was six years old. The rapist was her teenage cousin who lived next door, and even “shared” her with another male cousin. Not only that, when she and her family were living in the United States, she was abused again, this time by an American La Salle Brother. She did not tell anyone about her plight.

It was during the imminent release of her book by Anvil Publishing that she told her family of her having been abused. At this point, one of her seven sisters broke down and said she had been raped as a child by a carpenter.

Now in her 70s, Dr. Valdes made her revelation during the launch of her book titled “Educating Women Leaders: Transformation in Women’s Colleges.”

I was not present at the book launch, so I borrow details of Dr. Valdes’ revelation and message to girls from a colleague, Eric S. Caruncho, staff writer of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

With the Philippine Commission on Women’s study that one in every 10 Filipino women has been a victim of rape, Dr. Valdes said it is essential that schools, women’s schools in particular, learn how best to help students overcome their traumatic experiences. Schools should include dealing with abuse and violence in the syllabus of certain subjects, and explore programs that can guide victimized children into “avenues of healing.” They should lead in overcoming the social taboos that perpetuate the culture of silence, including one’s squeamishness in talking about sex.

Dr. Valdes says, “Neurologically, biologically and historically, women come from a different place than men.” Girls and boys develop at equal rates at first, but by the fifth grade, girls develop much faster, and it takes several years for the boys to catch up. By the time girls get to their 20s, they’re four years ahead of the boys.

Filipino culture does not help in bridging this gap. Mothers tend to pamper their sons while being strict with their daughters, Valdes told Eric, the PDI writer. Women, therefore, learn to be responsible at an early age, while men enjoy a prolonged adolescence.

Social and cultural factors also inhibit women when they enroll in co-educational schools and the workplace. “Women have power,” says Valdes, but are uneasy about using it.”

“For some reason, society still trusts men more with positions that require a large organization, even if women are really good at it, too.

“The key is for men to trust women, to mentor them, and finally help them break through the glass ceiling.

“It takes a brave man to support a woman,” the educator says.

In her book, Dr. Valdes says, “Speaking out is also the beginning of healing. Victimhood is not a place to dwell in and needs to be overcome. The victim cannot escape or skirt the violent events. She or he must go ‘through’ the experience. Embrace it for what it is and then forgive the persons involved, forgive one’s self, and move forward without looking back.”

The essential first step to healing is to speak out, frankly and courageously, she writes. My own feeling about Dr. Valdes’ “coming out” is she could help start the #MeToo move- ment in this country, in the fashion of revelations by women in the United States of having been abused by superiors in the film industry, by elite Olympic athletes, and within the Catholic Church.

Keeping her secret to herself for decades, Dr. Valdes moved forward, at age 18 joining the Religious of the Assumption, with the name Mother Jude Mary, RA. She became a teacher and later became Assumption Convent’s high school principal in 1976.

After 14 years as a nun, Eric writes, Dr. Valdes left the convent for secular life. She joined the Bancom group, then various arms of the Ayala Corp. She also worked for American companies and rose to be vice president for human resources of a large San Franciscobased company. Here she experienced the “glass ceiling,” meaning she could never be company president.

She has masters’ degrees in educational management from De La Salle University and theology from the University of San Francisco, a doctorate in philosophy from the University of California Berkeley. She was a professor at the Loyola school of Theology at the Ateneo de Manila University and dean of the Marie Eugenie school of Innovative Learning before becoming the first lay president of Assumption College in 2016.

* * * Dr. Louie Ocampo, the new Philippines country director of the United Nations program on HIV/AIDS, known as UNAIDS, faces the daunting task of advocating condom use and comprehensive sexuality education to address the country’s worsening HIV epidemic. He realizes that the main hurdle in the efforts for young Filipinos to avoid HIV transmission is the lack of political will to implement measures drawn up by successive Philippine governments.

The number of new HIV cases increased from only four a day in 2010 to 31 a day as of November 2017, according to Department of Health data.

From just 117 cases a decade ago, the total number of HIV cases as of November 2017 is 49,733, an overwhelming majority of it (41,369, or 83 percent) were reported in the last five years alone.

Low condom use has been identified as the main reason why HIV has exploded in the Philippines in the past decade. A 2016 Human Rights Watch report found this to be the result of the lack of a national campaign to promote condom use. Ocampo and UNAIDS will need to convince the government to break down the barriers to low condom access and use. Opposition to condom use comes largely from the Roman Catholic church and conservative political leaders.

Providing comprehensive sexuality education, which is already mandated by law, should be enforced as soon and as widely as possible. This is crucial because HIV prevalence is increasing among Filipinos aged 15-24, mostly men and transgender women who have sex with men.

The Philippine government, according to the UNAIDS media bureau, faces other challenges – the spread of HIV among people who inject drugs and in detention facilities as well as the persistence of stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV. But unless the government takes the message of UNAIDS to heart and ensures that condom use and sexuality education is at the core of its HIV prevention strategy, the Philippines’ HIV epidemic is unlikely to abate.

* * * Email: dominitorrevillas@gmail.com