Meeting the ‘Pantawid’ women

DAVAO – We were a week early for the famous “Kadayawan” festival in this city, but we were here for another sort of celebration.

The occasion was the “National Wrap-Up on the Implementation of Municipal Gender Action Plans,” a consultation among officials of the Department of Social Welfare and Development working on the 4Ps (or Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program) beneficiaries, parent-leaders, municipal “links,” and community development officers who all happen to be members of Pilipina, the national women’s organization which I chair.

For about a year and a half now, Pilipina members have been working in selected towns and barangays nationwide, working with beneficiary-mothers of the 4Ps on their gender action plans. The plans center on raising their awareness of women’s issues, orienting them on laws promoting women’s rights, especially the Magna Carta of Women, and formulating plans for livelihood programs they can adopt to cross the bridge from “dependence to self-sufficiency.”

Pilipina bid for the project last year as part of the Asian Development Bank’s package of technical assistance to the 4Ps. Once known as the CCT or Conditional Cash Transfer, the 4Ps is meant as a “bridging” program to help the poorest families with school-age children weather the transition from abject poverty to self-sufficiency. The monthly cash grants of P500 per child are meant to ensure that the children complete their basic education (the program was recently amended to cover schooling up to high school level) and pay regular visits to the health center. Pregnant 4Ps women are also expected to pay at least four visits to the health center before their delivery, to give birth with the assistance of a trained birth attendant, and to consult service providers regarding family planning and other health concerns.

In addition, 4Ps parents are expected to attend regular parenting sessions where matters like child-rearing, enriching spousal relations, family communication, and building relationships with the community, the bigger society and God or Allah are discussed.

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The goal, it is clear, is not merely a “dole-out,” or handing out cash to destitute families. The money helps with survival, true, but the other programs, the “conditionalities” attached to the cash grant, means that even as they receive money from the government, the parents and their children agree to pursue education, look after their health, and take an active role in building their communities.

To help 4Ps families reach the goal of self-sufficiency much faster, livelihood projects are available, with the beneficiaries themselves free to choose what are best suited to them and their abilities, with access to low-interest loans and capability-building sessions.

The ADB-funded program aims to go one step further and highlight the gender dimensions of the 4Ps, with women undergoing orientation and training to know their rights, organize themselves, and build their abilities to “negotiate” with local government officials, to lay claim to rights and entitlements.

These are basic rights of citizenship, but the desperately poor often feel they have no choice but to accept government largesse, “paying back” by voting as their patrons wish. Organizing them, raising awareness, and training them to negotiate with officials are acts of empowerment that, in the process strengthen grassroots democracy.

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I saw this evidence for myself in my three days in this city, interacting with women who appeared confident and self-assured, asking questions, talking about their problems and possible solutions, and expressing willingness to volunteer their time and effort in working with the government at the most basic level.

For instance, in many communities, the women expressed their willingness to form “QRTs” or quick response teams at the neighborhood level to come to the aid of victims and survivors of domestic violence and report the perpetrators to the police.

In my “statement of support,” I said that the work Pilipina has done and will do until the end of the project’s life has long been part of its DNA. Upholding the rights of women and uplifting the status of women especially at the most basic barangay level are at the core of Pilipina’s reason for being. And it is work that the organization will continue to do in whatever capacity, as long as the need exists.

Our dream is that the work of organizing women in the poorest communities will go beyond pilot areas, and be mainstreamed into programs of governance in every town and barangay, and that local officials will go beyond paying lip service to women empowerment.

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Ongoing in this city are preparations for the adoption of the final version of the Bangsamoro Basic Law, which distills the agreements negotiated by the panels of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the

government.

The word is that the BBL has hit a snag, with talks bogging down over wording and hardening positions. Civil society organizations and peace groups are hovering at the edges, anxious at the possibility of years—nay, decades—of painstaking negotiations going down the drain.

Time is fast running out, and it is widely conceded that P-Noy is in a far more vulnerable place politically than he was mere months ago. Chances of a smooth passage by the BBL look slim at best, and who knows what road bumps his political enemies will set up along the way?

Which is why it’s time for people of goodwill to hunker down and hammer out a law that, while it may not please either side completely, sufficiently meets the basic aspirations of the Bangsamoro community and the national government. Give peace a chance!