Kababaihan: Ahensya ng Kapayapaan

Magandang hapon sa inyong lahat, maayong hapon sa tanan. I often hear people say that women hold up half the sky. But I often ask myself: do we really? In reality, I think that less than a quarter of women can even reach it. Others are not even allowed to lift their hands and hold it up. We all know what I mean. Many women continue to be marginalized in society. Systems, institutions and structures continue to subordinate women on the basis of their sex (Mcginnis). Women in this audience, ask yourselves while I go through a list of victimization and marginalization practices if these are applicable to you.

Are you actively involved in decision-making in the home and at work? Are you relegated to doing household chores; paid less for similar work; or barred from certain positions, places or practices? Has someone told you that you need not be educated because you are a woman? Do you know a woman who has been trafficked, sold, and exploited? Have you been sexually harassed in school or in the workplace? Are you a victim of domestic violence? Do you personally know of a woman abused in situations of armed conflict?

I am sure that many women have been victimized at one point in their lives. Enough! I say. It’s time that women move from victimization to participation and empowerment. There are a lot of reasons to hope that this can be done. There is the CEDAW, the Magna Carta for Women and the two United Nations Security Council Resolutions on Women, Peace and Security asking member-states to protect women from violence in situations of armed conflict and to increase women’s role in conflict prevention, conflict resolution, peacemaking and peacebuilding. These are UN Security Council Resolutions 1820 and 1325. Can we say those numbers again?

I do not pin my hopes solely on these documents to better women’s lot. I pin my hopes more on our civil society which even without these documents has been working on the ground to uplift the situation of women and men. These are NGOs that provide humanitarian assistance and psycho-social, economic, health and spiritual services to victims of war. These are the NGOs that facilitate dialogues in conflict-affected communities to prevent war. These are the NGOs that provide livelihood assistance and provide opportunities for skills and capability training.

Central to this NGO work are women who work to put their lives on the line to monitor ceasefires, or compliance to agreements of armed groups to respect human rights and the international humanitarian law. Central to this work are women who act as evacuation center managers and relief operations coordinators. Central to this work are women who have led in the call for the suspension of military operations and have initiated the creation of spaces for or zones of peace. In situations of conflict, they are peace advocates, negotiators and mediators, values “formators”, healers and “reconcilers” (PrepCom Consultations to Develop a NAP, 2009). They are the “people power” at the heart of the peace process.

What else keeps my hopes afloat that women’s fate in this country would be better amidst the victimization in ’peace time’ and in situations of armed conflict? I pin my hopes on this new government we have that I know is sincere about its quest to bring about change. I have never felt more hopeful about good governance in my life than now.

I therefore ask this government through the agencies present here to help keep those hopes alive. Please show through polices and practices, that you will be sincere partners in our goal of making women participate at all tables where decisions are made from the local to the national levels especially in the aspects of peacemaking (Cora Weiss, message to Prepcom).

These we concretely ask of you:

To President Aquino: Please continue to appoint women in senior positions in the executive branch of government. We thank you for Ging Deles, Patricia Licuanan, Leila de Lima, Etta Rosales, Ma. Lourdes Aranal Sereno, among others.

To the Department of Justice: please faithfully investigate and prosecute SGBV cases reported. All there is in our hands are SGBV reports but there are no consolidated data on what happened thereafter. Please work to bring justice to women victims.

To OPAPP: Thank you for increasing women’s representation in the government peace panels. There is more we ask of you. Please formulate policies under the Social Integration Program that would address women’s rights in situations of armed conflict in accordance to what is stipulated in the CARHRIHL, and come up with a distinct economic package for women ex-combatants as some of their needs differ with men

To CHED and DepEd: please pass policies that would institutionalize gender education into the basic education and teacher education curricula and institute concrete programs that would implement EO 570 which mandates the integration of peace education into the various aspects of the education content and process.

To the AFP and PNP: Please train men in uniform on women’s rights and on the UN Security Council resolutions on women, peace and security and develop programs that would penalize personnel who will violate women’s rights. Our PNP, do what you can to drastically reduce the guns that proliferate- guns are normally the weapons of choice to threaten, harass and harm women.

To all government agencies: please submit an annual report to the Philippine Commission on Women and the OPAPP on how the Gender and Development budget is allocated and spent

To all armed combatants: Please know that we don’t want war to be just safe for women. We want to make women safe by abolishing war (Cora Weiss’ message to PrepCom on UN1325). Go to the negotiating tables with sincere hearts. There is no other way to peace. Peace is the way.

Our dear government, please work to dismantle all structures that prevent women from holding up half the sky. Together let us work for “the attainment of a just, gender-respectful society where every Filipino woman is empowered as a peacebuilder, enjoying her human rights and safe from gender-based violence (Philippine NAP, 2009)”.

After all, as Gary Granada expressed in one of his songs:
Di lang kami asawa, di lang kapatid
Di lang kaibigan o kaisang-dibdid
Di lang kasintahan o inang uliran
Kami ay ahensiya ng pagbabago ng bayan
Kami ay kasama sa pagbubuo ng kapayapaan.

Isang makabuluhang buwan ng kapayapaan sa ating lahat!

Thank you very much.

__________________________
Dr. Jasmin Nario Galace is a Board Member of Sulong CARHRIHL and the Associate Director of Center for Peace Education, Miriam College. The speech was first delivered last September 1, 2010 during the opening of the National Peace Consciousness Month celebration at the Quezon Memorial Circle.