Women in Mindanao could lead their families out of the grip of poverty.

ILOILO CITY, Philippines, June 16, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Calls are growing for more focus on women in Mindanao as a means of reducing poverty and accelerating development after an annual report on the state of women in the area highlighted serious problems.

If the Philippine government invests on the education, health and livelihood of women in Mindanao now, the people in the southern Philippine island would be out of poverty in 30 years, the head of the Mindanao Commission on Women (MCW) told IslamOnline.net Wednesday, June 15.

Irene Santiago, MCW chair, said Muslim and indigenous women in Mindanao could very well stir their families out of poverty in 30 years if the national government helps the local governments do the job of helping these women.

"It can be done in one generation, in 30 years," Santiago told IOL.

"The role of women in their homes will re-down to the community."

According to the "State of the Women of Mindanao Report 2004," released by MCW early this year, "Mindanao women need urgent attention in the areas of economic opportunities, reproductive health, political participation, education, and even basic services such as water and power."

Poverty, it said, "is deepest and most severe in the provinces where the Indigenous peoples and Muslims reside." It added, of the country's poor, 31 percent are from Mindanao, where 24 percent of the Philippines' 85 million people live.

Provinces of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), home of most of the country's Muslims, posted very low Human Development Index with ARMM provinces having the lowest HDI values ranging from 0.322 to 0.400.

HDI is the measure of how well a country has performed, not only in terms of real income growth, but also in terms of social indicators of people's ability to lead a long and healthy life, to acquire knowledge and skills, and to have access to the resources needed to afford a decent standard of living.

The Gender Development Index or GDI, which measures the inequality in the achievement of women and men based on life expectancy at birth, educational attainment and standard of living, is also low in ARMM compared to other Mindanao provinces, posting an average of 0.449. Sulu province had the lowest GDI in the entire country at 0.322.

Santiago said it is the government leaders' resolve to alleviate people from poverty. "It is the political will that will make this happen. This is not brain surgery. This is not rocket science. Other countries have done it. Countries that have gotten out of poverty have shown us how."

In addressing poverty and other pressing problems, Santiago added the government should improve the allocation of public funds. For example, the budgets for health and education, which are the worst problems besetting the women of Mindanao, has steadily been flat for many years. "This has to change," she said.

She stressed "poverty reduction cannot be separated from good governance."

According to the report, "Mindanao performed poorest in education indicators with ARMM decidedly the worst case. Extreme poverty, aggravated by the lack of peace and security, has deprived many Lumad [indigenous people] and Moro women of basic education."

Of the regions in Mindanao, the report further read, it is the ARMM which showed "the most disturbing performance" in education. It is lowest in simple literacy, functional literacy, secondary participation, elementary   cohort   survival, and highest in dropouts, in addition to having the lowest number of passers in the Licensure Exams for Teachers.

Helping women develop their manual skills could be a step on the way.

Fatah Tarhata Maglangit, chair of the Regional Commission on Bangsamoro Women, said it would also help to look into how the resources brought to Mindanao are being spent.

"The funding agencies say they were satisfied with the reports of the project implementers. That the projects and programs they have funded were finished according to the plans. But why is there no change? Why these projects remain?" she told IslamOnline.net on Wednesday, June 15.

She said that millions of dollars from foreign funding institutions have been poured into the island after the Philippine government and Moro National Liberation Front, which fought for an independent state, sealed a peace agreement in 1996, yet their studies on the state of the people living there yielded negative results.

Maglangit added it is important to ask "Are the people empowered? Are the communities now self-reliant? Where do projects from funding institutions go?"

Hope

Santiago said there is hope for the women of Mindanao. "In the local government level, there is hope. Local government units have done more. The national government is mediocre."

MCW, an organization established to provide leadership to address political, socio-cultural and economic concerns from a Mindanao women's perspective for the achievement of peace and development in Mindanao, said the same in the report.

"Despite the dismal picture of the political and socio-economic picture of Mindanao, especially among the women in Moro and Lumad communities, Mindanao is able to hope because women doggedly continue to face the challenges with spunk and relentless energy.

Working at the level where they find themselves, they bring people together to innovate, to build, and to hope.

"Many of them are found in communities that have suffered war.  Many of them are there in villages wracked with hunger and illness. Some of them are found in the offices, schools, NGOs, and businesses where they have found some space for empowering themselves to do things in an efficient, honest, and effective way.  A few of them - an only a few – have found a place at the table where decisions are made."