Women’s survival and the talks in Japan

PALMIRA – The Philippines has many things in common with Colombia: a similar history of Spanish colonization, armed conflict based on agrarian unrest and the scramble for control of resources, and gaps in wealth, class and education that are about as wide as the Pacific Ocean.

Flying into the southern city of Cali in the “department” (similar to a region or state) of Cauca, we noted the tropical weather on the drive to this city, remarking that it was like “driving down SLEX!” Even the foliage was tropical: palm trees and clumps of bamboo, acacia and bougainvillea bushes. But even more familiar was the gathering of women from all over northern Cauca in the city library and museum, to share stories and enlighten themselves on the Philippines.

Many of the women from indigenous communities told of being driven from their areas by paramilitary groups and guerrillas in the service of mining firms, oil companies and agribusiness concerns in their avid search for new and virgin territory. Other women from remote areas, most of them barely out of their teens, were driven to the cities in the area by economic need, and have found themselves in domestic employ or engaged in the sex trade.

One organization calls itself “Open House” and serves women victims of violence (including armed conflict), as well as runaway maids and internally displaced women and children fleeing incursions into their ancestral lands. Despite the good work “Open House” does, it doesn’t receive any government support and is even harassed by authorities, the leaders said. The staff have been harassed, trailed and “re-victimized,” they said.

A ray of hope is “Confluencia,” a Cauca-wide alliance of women’s groups. Confluencia has vowed to “eradicate violence against women, exclusion and marginalization” in their “department.”

Leading Confluencia is Miriam Gomez Carvajal, who has used women’s numbers and power to win, at least from the government of Palmira, a share of the city budget for women’s affairs. Part of the work of organizing women, Miriam shared, is involving them in income-generating activities, including craft stores, food preparation and catering, as well as involvement in politics. Miriam herself is a councilor and she hopes to get more women elected in the ongoing local elections.

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The next day, we took a three-hour bus ride to Popayan, known as “The White City” because the old city center consists of squat tile-roofed centuries-old buildings that, by law, must all be painted white. The house-painting, we are told, is done during Holy Week by city personnel.

“It is a white city with a black soul,” intones Isabel Ortega Carvajal who, during the introductions the day before, described herself as a “militant” devoted to defending the rights of sugar cane workers. On the drive to Popayan, we come across sugar cane fields, and Isabel fills us with stories of the oppression of the workers and their struggles for better working conditions. Apparently, Popayan’s prosperity has been built on the backs of oppressed workers.

Popayan is quaint, charming and historic and is a perfect backdrop for Facebook posts. But there is little time for “kodakan” for again, women are waiting to hear from us on the peace situation in the Philippines, and are eager to share their own stories.

At the offices of the NGO “Red Departmental de Mujeres del Cauca (roughly, Regional Group of Women in Cauca),” women tell us of their work with indigenous communities, particularly in trying to harness traditional knowledge and skills to improve food production and livelihood skills.

In the afternoon, we dialogue with the women from CRIC, which works for the interests of indigenous communities. The women come with almost-uniform stories of fleeing their ancestral lands after armed groups drove them out and continued to harass them into silence. “I am sorry to come to you with a very sad face,” says Enriqueta Anacona as she starts to tell her story of how she has had to struggle after her husband’s assassination.

It is not just survival in the physical and economic sense that preoccupies them, the women say. They also speak earnestly of their “work to recover their identity and culture,” the eradication of which they claim is “another form of colonization.”

This is an issue that resonates with Twinkle Bautista, a young Kalinga woman who is part of our group of four touring Southern Colombia (the others Rosemarie Rodriguez, vice mayor of Calbiga, Samar; and Mitzi Austero, a consultant with international NGO Conciliation Resources which funded our trip). Twinkle’s work, aside from monitoring and even mediating conflicts in her area, includes educating youths in their indigenous culture and heritage, features of which, especially the “bodong,” they employ in settling disputes.

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I cannot end this column without a word on the meeting between President Aquino and MILF chairman Murad Ebrahim in Japan.

Truly, as Professor Marvic Leonen, chairman of the GRP panel in the talks with the MILF, has described it, the meeting is a “grand gesture” on the part of the government and should prove to the MILF and to the public the sincerity of the Aquino leadership in pursuing peace in Mindanao.

That the news comes right in the middle of our tour of Colombia, our own little attempt at coming to an understanding of the roots of armed conflict and seeking a way to bring the voices of non-combatants, especially women, to the table, is a very good sign and a reason for hope.

Many times, in our talks with Colombian women, the question has popped up in my mind: “How can we help them when their problems are much more serious than ours?” The talks between P-Noy and Murad shows the way.