COLOR THEM HAPPY Muslim women are in a festive mood as they gather at the Cotabato City Plaza to show their support for the peace agreement signed Thursday by the Philippine government and the MILF. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
CAMP DARAPANAN, Sultan Kudarat—Moro men were jubilant over the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) on Thursday but Moro women said the word “ecstatic” was an understatement of how they really felt.
Bai Rasad Balabaran, 38, said she lost three men in her life to the war between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
“I was young when I lost two of my brothers and it pained me a lot that I lost my husband also in the war,” Balabaran said.
She said her husband left six children for her to take care of and she strove hard to raise them.
Last year, Balabaran said she found love again in Asraf Agar, 51, who is also an MILF fighter.
“But I just hope this conflict will end,” she said, expressing hope the CAB would finally end a conflict that festered for over 40 years.
Balabaran said losing a fourth man in her life would be unbearable.
Baigan Akilan, 21, a computer technology student, said she did not want any more people killed.
Her grandfather, she said, was among 1,800 Muslims massacred at a mosque in Sultan Kudarat at the height of Martial Law.
“We the young generation are wholly supportive of this peace agreement,” she said. “We want a better future.”
Naul Namalangkay, 52, head of the health and dental care of the Bangsamoro Islamic Women Auxiliary Brigade (BIWAB), a non-combatant unit of the MILF, said she did not know how many relatives she lost in the war. Neither could she reckon how much tears she had shed tending to wounded combatants or seeing fighters being carried home dead.
“I’ve spent 40 years in the MILF and I want to see that peace would eventually reign in Mindanao,” she said.
Jamira Mapakasunggo, 56, also lost count of the times she, her family and friends had to run away from their homes to avoid getting caught in the crossfire.
“Many tend to think that mainly men are victims of the war, but they forget that women are the most affected,” she said.
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