kababaihan-at-kapayapaan-issue-3

THE ROAD OUT OF MAMASAPANOIn Maguindanao,gender empowermentis key to peaceMap courtesy of RapplerBy JURGETTE HONCULADAMAGUINDANAO HAS SEARED ITSELF into the national consciousnesswith images and accounts of two bloodbaths within barely half a decade of each other:the numbing carnage committed by a political dynasty in Shariff Aguak in 2009; and the more recentwrenching deaths of scores of police commandos and Muslim combatants and civilians in Mamapasano.How to delink Maguindanao from images of death and despair--a bridge too far, too frail, a lonely cornfield? How todisabuse ourselves of the crippling stereotypes that Maguindanao evokes: of unbridled corruption and political dynastybuilding in the extreme; of the rule of the gun rendering the rule of law irrelevant, worse, inutile; of the vast majorityconsigned to penury and squalor by inordinate greed of the few; of a poverty of spirit that will not risk dissent and action;of a culture of violence that mocks childhood and barters away the future?But the narrative is not unique to Maguindanao for it resonates in other parts of the country. Indeed, there is ambiguity,fragility, terror in the narrative – but they cannot cloak a dynamism, a greater complexity, a resilience, a vibrancy thatdares say: war and death are not the last words in this narrative.As a Mindanaoan, I have lived with the pain and grief from decades of the so-called Muslim-Christian conflict. As non-Maguindanaoan, I ask myself what can stop the juggernaut of corruption-greed-poverty-violence that has deprived manyMaguindanaoans of a decent life? And how to make sense of the violence at Mamasapano that defies easy answers andanalyses? How not to respond to calls for justice with a peace process that is not left twisting in the wind, if not dead in thewater?In the days preceding Mamasapano, I visited Maguindanao in pursuit of a story that, in fact, targeted the juggernautquestion (albeit indirectly). After several days of interviews I took off from Cotabato airport mid-morning of January 25,not knowing that life and death hung in the balance for 67 persons (including an eight-year-old girl) not far from where Ihad traveled through days earlier.Let me leave Mamasapano for now and share the story that was my reportorial task: the first local implementation of theNational Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security (NAP-WPS) in Maguindanao. In the end that narrative will take us fullcircle, in a fashion, back to Mamasapano.The NAP covers nearly all the bases. It is based on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 which seeks theprotection of women, and promotion of their rights, in armed conflict and post-conflict situations. NAP’s goals arefourfold: protection and prevention, empowerment and participation, promotion and mainstreaming, and monitoring andevaluation (see Kababaihan at Kapayapaan, September 2014).But the story of NAP localization in Maguindanao goes back earlier to the 1990s when national government agencies (andlater, local government units [LGUs]) were mandated in the yearly General Appropriations Act starting in 1995 to set aside20 KABABAIHANatKAPAYAPAAN March 2015