Lessons from the visit

SAN DIEGO – I am in this California city for a brief respite before taking the long flight home. I am here primarily to pay a visit to my new grandnephew, born last month, who now goes by the name of Theo Wilfrido. Being the first grandson of my sister Chona and her husband Willy, Theo is the lucky recipient of parental and grandparental attention, now supplemented by a newly-arrived grandaunt. But Theo spends most of his time sleeping, blissfully unaware of the competing ministrations of the adults in his midst.

Our last two days in Colombia were spent attending a whole-day seminar on “Women, Peace and Security,” with both Colombian and Filipino speakers discussing the intersections between gender, conflict, conflict resolution and post-conflict restitution and justice. The day after, we held an assessment of the visit, first among us 10 Filipina delegates, and then with our Colombian hosts.

Sharpest among the observations that surfaced during the assessment was expressed by Rosa Emilia Salamanca, executive director of the NGO Ciase, and coordinator for the Colombian side of our exchange program. Preparing for our arrival, she said, “We thought you would be so much like us (considering everything that Colombia and the Philippines have in common). But it turns out you are more Asian than we thought.”

It wasn’t just the food, with many of the Filipinas reacting to the meat-heavy and starchy diet, and missing boiled white rice or the delayed mealtimes. Or even the language gap. Perhaps the Spanish influence isn’t as wide or as deep in our country as we supposed – or is no longer. We found ourselves chafing at missed departure times and foregone flights.

The Filipinas, meanwhile, were taken aback at how politics, specifically post-colonial politics, has seeped into Colombian life. Even the decision to buy a bottle of Coke during a road trip led to an extended discourse on the evils of multinationals, the sugar industry and even the impact on one’s health of sugar substitutes.

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Considering our differences and clashes of opinion, it was still a wonder how well we got along, even if most of our conversations, conducted without the help of translators (or even with their help, given their own limitations), consisted of pidgin Spanish and English with lots of body language.

One of the Filipino participants was Chief Superintendent Lina Sarmiento of the Philippine National Police. Aside from the invitation from Conciliation Resources and Sulong Carhrihl, the coordinating NGO on the Philippine side, Chief Superintendent Sarmiento was also formally invited by the chief of the Colombian National Police. As such, she was a guest of the Colombian government and was thus accorded strict security. She moved about in a police vehicle, had a close-in plainclothes escort, and was accompanied everywhere she went by motorcycle cops.

During her trip to Northern Colombia, Chief Superintendent Sarmiento’s police escort went along, although when they visited the citadel of the “City of Women,” the indigenous tribal leaders stood their ground and refused to let any of the armed escorts in.

But the Colombians conceded that “learning to deal with the military and police” was one of the biggest lessons they learned during the visit. Despite the antagonistic history between military/police and Colombian civil society, they said, they could see themselves forging a working relationship given what they saw as the easy ties the NGO women from the Philippines had forged with the police general.

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Still, it wasn’t only Chief Superintendent Sarmiento who had to deal with the issue of police escorts. On our visit to Southwest Colombia, including the “departments” of Cauca and Narino (pronounced Narinyo), we were shadowed by uniformed and plainclothes police, some of whom would even stand guard overnight in our hotels.

In Popayan, after our lunch and dialogue with the women of CRIC, an organization promoting the rights of indigenous communities, we had to cut short our talks because our police escorts didn’t want us driving to Palmira after dark.

Only after our arrival in Bogota did we learn that kidnapping was rife in the area. And thankfully so, because, aside from our embarrassment over the inconvenience we were causing, we would have worried ourselves to death.

On our visit to the mountain town of Puerres where we were driven to the highest point on the Andes, we drove a short distance to turn and make our way down the narrow lane. We spotted a small memorial with a Colombian flag aloft, built we were told a few years ago when a clash between Colombian military and elements of FARC, the insurgent army, resulted in the death of six soldiers. It was a poignant reminder that the armed conflicts in Colombia still rage, and that the road to peace is still as steep and difficult as the mountain passes.

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The trip to Colombia, and a visit by the Colombian delegation in October, has been designed to provide both our groups with information and insights on the conditions of conflict and peace-building in our countries. It is hoped that these would serve as the basis for policy and actions which would influence not just officials and combatants but even a civilian constituency on the need for a just and lasting peace in both our countries.

Officials in the Philippines and Colombia talk a lot about bringing an end to the conflicts that beset our two countries. And it’s a blessing that measures leading to precisely this point are being made, no matter how frustrating it can seem. But we cannot leave the task of peace-building to generals, politicians or insurgent leaders alone. The voices of women and children caught in the crossfire, of communities displaced and dislocated, of people of goodwill must be heard and heeded, too.