The peacemakers: Women’s lib in men’s world

‘LEARNING OPENS OPPORTUNITIES’ Women organize a cooperative at Camp Bushra to get funding for livelihood projects. —Zuhaira Mangansakan/BDA

(Third of a series)

CAMP BUSHRA, LANAO DEL SUR, Philippines — Jamila Omar is learning the basic lessons of empowering women in a largely men’s world.

She proudly shows documents acknowledging the establishment of a people’s organization and a certificate of a cooperative it had formed.

Jamila and several dozen other women discussed projects for funding, including a multipurpose center, home gardens, stores, a solar dryer.

READ: Transforming empowerment of women into action

“We’re taking steps to improve our lives,” said Jamila, 24, a holder of a bachelor’s degree in elementary education, in a meeting with a team from Community and Family Services International (CFSI) and the Bangsamoro Development Agency (BDA).

CFSI and BDA partnered with the World Bank to implement a $4-million Bangsamoro Camp Transformation Program that aims to improve access to community-based socioeconomic services and basic infrastructure.

Target beneficiaries are in the heart of six acknowledged camps of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

CFSI and BDA lay down the mechanics of embarking on a project, from sub-project identification, procurement and management of contractor, community implementation, operations and maintenance, and monitoring—the basic practices in community development and basic livelihood management.

The recovery and development program for peace had largely centered on ancestral and forest lands in the vast expanse of communities under MILF influence in six provinces.

Easing fears

These areas are now in various stages of progressive revival—thanks to the multidonor Mindanao Trust Fund that ran from 2005 to 2022 and the existing Bangsamoro Normalization Trust Fund both set up and administered by the World Bank at the request of the government and the MILF.

In the core of the camps, CFSI and BDA’s initiatives are assisting those who have fallen through the cracks in the infrastructure and socio-economic development—women, indigenous peoples, the elderly, orphans, persons with disabilities, those who otherwise would have received attention in a normally functioning government with all its resources.

Bangsamoro development projects at Bushra were slow in taking off, said Maliksi Masjeda, 51, the deputy base commander.

“The first relief workers were viewed with suspicion. There were concerns,” he said, until “we realized they had no hidden agenda.”

The establishment of basic necessities had helped build confidence and contributed to political normalization.

But in 2016, a five-month siege of Marawi City by the Maute group and Islamic State fighters disrupted the process.

Bushra became a staging area for government offensives.

“It was a nightmare,” said Masjeda.

In the shadow of Salamat

Bushra today exudes the air of a progressive little town along a busy highway. Offices, social halls, a health center, a garden, dot the windswept complex overlooking the spectacular Lake Lanao.

On one elaborate wall are written Moro sayings:

“Who is not courageous enough will accomplish nothing.”

“A man has only one life to give, what is the difference if it is given away sooner or later for what he thinks is a good cause.”

“Richness is not having many belongings, but richness is contentment of the soul.”

The sayings reflect the leadership attributes of the late Hashim Salamat, an Egyptian-educated Islamic scholar who founded the MILF.

Salamat is deeply respected in the MILF movement. He spent his last days at Butig, a forest reserve high above Bushra at Sandab.

On his death on July 13, 2003, at the age of 64 because of an illness, his body was carried through the heart of the forest. His men cut down dense trees in a daylong procession to his burial ground. A memorial is being planned on his gravesite.

Murad Ebrahim succeeded Salamat as MILF leader and was appointed chief minister of the Bangsamoro interim government.

On a warm sunny day, Murad’s United Bangsamoro Justice Party held a general assembly in Marawi, festooned with its green and yellow banners, to prepare for next year’s elections.

Lessons for schoolteacher

The air of political normalcy is not lost in Bushra, where volunteers of CFSI and BDA coached Jamila Omar on the mechanics of formulating their proposals that would allow for their livelihood priorities.

The group proposed the building of a multipurpose center, where skills development training, food processing and trading could be done.

“We did not know how complex this process is,” said Jamila, who recently completed her studies at the Lake Lanao college and is preparing for her licensure examinations to practice her profession.

In the meantime, she articulates the sentiments of the women and children in her group at Bushra.

“We are willing to learn. It opens opportunities to improve our lives.” (The writer is a former reporter and aid worker who has been assigned in conflict zones in Asia, Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East.)