PHILIPPINES: The Women's Peace Table: Nothing About Us Without Us

(UN Photo)

Davao City has given birth to another groundbreaking initiative – The Women's Peace Table.

Of course, it is but natural that the city known for its empowered women and a Galing Pook-winning gender mainstreaming program should be the one to come up with this bright idea.

An initiative of Davao City-based Mindanao Commission on Women (MCW), the Women Peace Table “will bring voices of women in the peace negotiations and in peace building, giving the women's perspective on the issues not only now on the table of the peace negotiations but also on what women deem to be critical to a successful post peace agreement reconstruction and recovery.”

This is also in line with the Philippines' implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 entitled “Women, Peace and Security,” which was considered a landmark resolution with the force of international law when it was passed on October 31, 2000. The Philippines is the first country in Asia to have a National Action Plan to implement this UN resolution.

According to MCW Chair Emerita and CEO Irene M. Santiago, the Women Peace Table is a “connecting table” which will connect the “high table” of the formal peace negotiations with the “low tables” of the women, especially those in the communities who have been affected by war.

“As a connecting table it will provide inputs on possible options as well as feedback to the negotiators and the women. It will act as a bridge among different sectors including those whose support for the final peace agreement will be crucial such as business, the religious sector, media, labor, cooperatives, academe, and the youth,” Ms. Santiago said.

She added that the Women's Peace Table is an open and broad table that will be open to all women from all sectors and all walks of life from the north to the south of the Philippines. It will build a broad constituency not only in Mindanao but throughout the country.

“The support of this broad constituency is important, especially in the structural changes that will be agreed upon by the two parties, and in the legislative, and possibly Constitutional, processes these changes will require,” she stressed.

Through the broad peace constituency it will build, Ms. Santiago believes that the Women's Peace Table can also become a mediating table that will mediate among members of the public that want to “spoil” the final peace agreement.

The issues that are now being discussed in the current negotiations between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) include disarmament, reintegration, security sector reform, power sharing, economic restructuring, transitional justice, constitution drafting, elections, implementing mechanisms and monitoring.

Women have long been engaged in peacebuilding in their local communities, implementing livelihood and other development projects, and undertaking reconciliation and healing initiatives. It is time that their presence must be strongly felt in the formal peace talks, which have long been dominated by men.

Veteran peacebuilder Myla Leguro noted the two parallel universes of women when it comes to peacebuilding: “Women are visible in grassroots peacebuilding and informal peace processes but invisible in the formal peace negotiations. The scarcity of women in leadership positions also contribute to their exclusion in the formal talks. So the creation of the Women's Peace Table is a concrete step towards making women more visible in the formal talks.”

Bo-I Era España, one of the very few women tribal chieftains in the country, also hopes that the Women Peace Table can bring the perspective of the indigenous peoples in the ongoing peace negotiations.

“There are certain issues unique to the indigenous peoples of Mindanao that are not being discussed and raised in the formal talks between the government and the MILF. For example, when the Moros talk of ancestral land, does that include the lumads who were displaced by some Moro tribes when they fled their hometowns during the war and sought refuge in lumad communities?” Bo-I Era asked.

Nothing About Us Without Us. Women comprise half of the population and must be equally represented in any peace negotiations. Nothing should be decided or agreed on without consulting and obtaining the consent of half of the population.

For too long men have been waging the wars and entering into peace agreements. And women are expected to just go along with whatever they decide. Now we declare: Enough of that, we are going in!