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As people celebrate Women’s Month, Moro Times
honors the struggle of Muslim women to right wrongs, fight poverty,
injustice and discrimination, and find peace and development for
their homeland.
Following are stories of
outstanding Moro women who have broken the so-called glass ceiling
in various fields.
Second to none, veiled or not,
these Muslim women have gained the respect and following of their
people proving that in Islam, men and women are equal not only in
rights but also in shouldering responsibility to the ummah. They are
mothers and daughters, peace advocate and mujahideen, educator and
politician, aleema and labor leader, journalist and community
worker. Most of all, they are exemplars of the Muslimah, proof that
Islam supports the leadership of women, not subjugate them.
Senadora: Champion of Filipino
women’s rights
Santanina “Nina” Rasul, the
island girl, graduated cum laude in political science from the
University of the Philippines. She was a favorite model of now
National Artists Napoleon Abueva and Ireneo Miranda.
She returned to Sulu and became a
public school teacher (1952 to 1957) where she taught among others,
Nur Misuari, chairman of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).
While Rasul devoted herself to
becoming a fulltime wife and mother, she spent her free time serving
her community. Her husband, the late Amb. Abraham Rasul, also
believed in public service. Disturbed by the high levels of
illiteracy in the Muslim communities, she developed an effective
literacy methodology in the 1960s, Magbassa Kita (Let Us Read). This
has been implemented by the Department of Education as a
national-literacy program. She founded the Magbassa Kita Foundation
Inc., which has trained about 1,500 literacy teachers nationwide. In
1990, she was appointed Honorary Ambassador of UNESCO during the
International Literacy year.
A liberal Muslim husband,
Ambassador Rasul—or Abe, as he was fondly called—encouraged his
wife to give in to the clamor of their community run for public
office. She was elected barrio councilor at Moore Avenue, Jolo, Sulu
(1960 to 1963). Later, she became the first Tausug woman elected
provincial board member (1971 to 1976). She was appointed a
Commissioner representing Muslim and other ethics minorities in the
National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women from 1978 to 1987.
The first Muslim woman elected
senator, the only Muslim elected senator for two terms (1987 and
1992), Rasul is unfortunately also the last Muslim senator. She
authored eight laws as Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Civil
Service and Government Recognition and the Committee on Women and
Family Relations. She received the Women’s Government and
Non-government Organization Network Award for her comprehensive
legislation for the promotion of women empowerment, specifically
Republic Act 6949—making March 8 as National Women’s Day;
Republic Act 7192— Women in Development and Nation Building Act,
which removed vestiges of discrimination against women, opened the
doors of the Philippine Military Academy to women.
Rasul received The Golden Heart
Presidential Award in 1998, “for her diligent efforts in
reconciling contentious positions of both the government and the
MNLF during the last phase of the peace negotiations in 1996,
culminating in her active involvement in the formulation of the
Final Peace Agreement, which ended hostilities between the two
parties.”
After leaving the Senate, she has
focused her energies on organizing Muslim Women Peace Advocates, the
education of Tausug youth and Magbassa Kita.
The Princess who settled
vendettas
Princess Tarhata “Tata”
Alonto-Lucman, 80, of Lanao del Sur, was the first woman governor in
Mindanao at a period of turmoil during the martial law years.
Lucman is better known as a
settler of rido (the local term for clan conflict). Time magazine
noted her peacemaking role for helping the release of
kidnapped nuns in Marawi City in 1986. Literally standing between
shooting clans, Lucman was able to settle the most bloody conflicts.
Born into royalty among the
Ranaw’s Pat a Pangampong Sultanates, Lucman as a girl looked up to
other pioneering Moro ladies like Princess Tarhata Kiram and Dayang
Dayang Piandao of Sulu who were educated and widely traveled. Lucman
was reared in the world of politics. She assisted her father, who
was “no read, no write” in his travels to Manila. That
experience became her training ground in the man’s world. When
then-President Ferdinand Marcos called datus and politicians to
Malacañang to consult them on declaring martial law, Gov.
Lucman’s advisers and kin advised her against going to Manila and
facing the fearsome, notorious Marcos. She went anyway.
Lucman, the only lady in the
entourage, went with other political kingpins—Tamano, Dimaporo,
and Pendatun.
When Marcos asked the delegates
what they thought of his proposal for martial law, Lucman stood up
among the datus who could not oppose the forthcoming militarization
of the South. She said sarcastically, “Even as I am an ordinary
woman, I have to raise my hand. Thank you for inviting this group.
As governor, I should be here to answer your call for a meeting with
Muslims. What I can say with all the datus here is that they are
unitedly agreed to support you in the announcement for reform. Thank
you, God bless you and the Filipino people.”
The feisty Lucman was removed
from governorship by Marcos but was later reinstated by President
Corazon Aquino.
Her maverick attitude also
defined her personal choices. Lucman also didn’t want to marry
someone whom she did not choose. She was repeatedly engaged by her
family to men from reputable and respected Maranao families, but she
kept breaking off wedding plans.
She eventually married her
mentor, Sultan Al-Rashid Lucman, founder of the Bangsamoro
Liberation Organization. The couple went on exile during martial
law.
Princess and educator
Her jihad was simple—education
for all. A Maguindanawan princess pursuing free education for her
provincemates, Bai Matabay Namli Plang of Kabacan founded Mindanao
Institute of Technology and the University of Southern Mindanao in
1951. That school has become one of the country’s top schools for
agricultural education.
In the 1940s, Plang was able to
get enough capital support from politicians to acquire from the
Americans the 1,024 hectares of former rubber plantation in the
town of Kabacan, Cotabato province. Mindanao Institute of Technology
became a university in 1978.
Plang was one of the children of
Moro royalty educated in the United States as a
government-sponsored student. She returned home and was married off
to another political scion, Salipada Pendatun, who later became
congressman and was instrumental in creating the Children’s
Educational Foundation Village, now called the Cotabato Foundation
College of Science and Technology.
It is a testament to her vision
and passion that today, the University of Southern Mindanao has
three campuses with more than 10,000 students. The university is
also in the top 10 among more than 120 state-owned universities and
colleges that earned Level 4, the highest accreditation status
awarded to institutions that excel in a broad area of academic
discipline and enjoy prestige and authority comparable to that of
international universities.
More than 20 years after her
death in 1984, the two schools she founded and nurtured are centers
of excellence where students from poor families are given the hope
and opportunity to improve their lives by way of education. Such was
the legacy of Plang, the pioneering and one of the most successful
the Magindanawn tribe has produced.
Woman president
One of the country’s Ten
Outstanding Women in the Nation’s Service (TOWNS) is the first woman
president of the Mindanao State University Nurhaylah “Emily”
Marohombsar. Lions International described her as “erudite,
bemedalled and exemplary among the crop of Muslim women.”
Gracing the cover of Woman’s
Magazine, this attractive woman from Ganassi, Lanao del Sur, was
hounded by talent scouts to join showbiz. Laughing it off, she
returned to her province after graduating from Philippine Women’s
University and taught at Mindanao State.
She started as a professor in
English. She rose up the ranks to become university president.
As president, Marohombsar
persevered to make Mindanao State one of the top schools of the
country, producing leaders in business and engineering. She also
opened the doors of the university to linkages abroad in the United
States and the BIMP-EAGA region. BIMP-EAGA refers to the East Asean
Growth Area, a grouping that includes Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia,
Malaysia and the Philippines.
After Mindanao State University,
she continued to serve her country as the lone woman member of the
government panel for the peace talks with the Moro Islamic
Liberation Front (MILF). She was later appointed by President
Gloria Arroyo to be a member of the Constitutional Commission,
created by the government to study the Charter change.
For her achievements, she was
conferred the Asean Gintong Ina Award, Sultan Kudarat Award for Most
Outstanding Muslim Educator, Bangsamoro Woman of Distinction, Outstanding
Alumni by the East-West Alumni, and other awards.
Politician
Faysah Maniri Racman-Pimping
Dumarpa is a three-term representative of the first district of
Lanao del Sur. Born in Marawi City, Dumarpa is married to
Commissioner Salic Dumarpa.
While more famous for the
unfortunate incident at the House of Representatives cafeteria,
where she allegedly slapped a waitress for serving her pork, Rep.
Dumarpa has a fine legislative record. She currently chairs the
Committee on Social Services and is vice-chairman of the Committee
on Muslim Affairs.
In the current Congress, she has
sponsored bills focusing on the establishment of a Moro Cultural
Heritage Center, the expansion of the Shari’ah Court System in the
Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), the prohibition of
religious and racial profiling against indigenous cultural
communities and other local bills for the improvement of her
district.
Faysah, who graduated with a
master’s degree in Anthropology at the Centro Escolar University,
started her public-service career teaching at the Pangarungan
Islamic College, where she also finished her bachelor’s in
education. She then held the post of ARMM undersecretary of the
Department of Social Welfare and Development before getting elected
to the Regional Legislative Assembly in 1993.
Quiet force behind ulama
Aleema Khadijah Imam Mutilan,
widow of the late Dr. Mahid Mutilan of the Ulama League of the
Philippines, was the strongest supporter of the influential
Muslim religious leader. Not much is known about the Aleema
Mutilan, since she has deliberately kept a low profile in Marawi.
She graduated from Al Azhar
Unveristy of Cairo and later helped institutionalize women’s
participation in the ulama organization of Lanao. The ulama (Muslim
religious scholars and leaders) are considered most influential in
Muslim society. She organized the Nisa Ul-Islam, a group of aleema
or women graduates of Islamic theology. The group was vital in
pushing for the Islamization of communities as it started holding
Islamic seminars in public places, involving more professionals, who
were schooled in Western education.
She also supervised the political
participation of women in a movement in a Marawi-based Islamic
political party that catapulted Mahid Mutilan to mayorship for two
terms and later the governorship of Lanao del Sur, wresting power
from the traditional political elites.
Mutilan’s major accomplishment
is institutionalizing the madaris (Islamic schooling) system not
only in ARMM but also in other areas. She helped lobby for
government support for the Islamic schools, especially in providing
salaries for madaris teachers.
After the untimely death of Dr.
Mutilan, she was perceived as a quiet force keeping her Islamic
party together to pursue the vision of her late husband. During the
First National Ulama Summit in January, the 25 aleema participants
from Mindanao turned to her for leadership as she guided their
discussions toward how they can help peace and development in
conflict-torn homeland.
Mutilan was conferred a royal
title, “Baialabi ko pata pangampong ko Ranaw,” in recognition of
her efforts to help her people.
Intellectual and mujahideen
Absent in the story-telling about
the March 1968 Jabidah Massacre are the women behind the resulting
Moro rebel fronts that were organized. It was but fitting that the
marker placed by Mindanao groups that commemorated the event in
Corregidor on March 18 was written by a woman.
Djalia Hataman of Basilan wrote,
“This controversial incident sparked the Bangsamoro struggle for
national self-determination which cause is sanctified by hundreds
and thousands of lives of Moro men, women and children ... This
marker serves as a remembrance and a beacon for us living to
continue the struggle for justice that their deaths would not be
lost in vain.”
One such woman became the pillar
and strength of the Moro National Liberation Front as she founded
the Bangsamoro Women Committee, a support arm of the MNLF. Eleonora
Rowaida Tan-Misuari or Roi to her comrades joined the armed movement
as a woman-member of the Central Committee of the MNLF. Roi,
who witnessed the inhumane impact of war, adamantly believed in the
Bangsamoro movement as a catalyst in achieving social development
for the Bangsamoro people, although she was open to diplomatic
approaches that could help build institutional change. She believed
in laying the groundwork for social justice by reforming the Moro
cultural institutions and rectifying historical and political
inequities.
Roi has always been an organizer,
a force behind Chairman Misuari. Behind his fiery and charismatic
presence that galvanized thousands to believe in a Bangsamoro nation
in the ’80s was this low-key intellectual, is a woman with a
bachelor’s in political science and master’s in Asian studies
who drafted and typed Misuari’s speeches.
Two months after the historic
signing of the Final Peace Agreement on September 2, Roi organized
the Bangsamoro Women Foundation for Peace and Development, Inc. Roi
believed that empowering Moro women was necessary to help them cope
with from the trauma of war. The foundation has become the umbrella
organization of Bangsamoro women who have dedicated their lives to
improving the welfare of the widows, orphans, homeless, and
displaced.
Muslim democrat
In 2007, Amina Rasul received the
Muslim Democrat of the Year Award from the Center for the Study of
Islam and Democracy, a Washington-based think tank. The Muslim
Democrat of the Year award is given by center to one outstanding
advocate for democracy in the Muslim world, particulary those
individuals who overcome hardships or challenges in his or her
efforts to promote democracy. The award, with a distinguished list
of recipients, including former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister
Anwar Ibrahim, recognizes Rasul’s life-long advocacy for democracy
and peace in Muslim Mindanao.
She has been a commissioner with
the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women, a board
director of the Philippine National Oil Corp. and of the Development
Bank of the Philippines. She is the first Muslim woman member of the
Cabinet, appointed by former President Fidel Ramos as presidential
advisor on youth affairs. Appointed concurrently as the first
chairman of the National Youth Commission, she was responsible for
organizing the new agency and for the formulation and implementation
of the Philippine Medium-Term Youth Development Plan. That plan was
acknowledged by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission
for Asia and the Pacific as one of the best practices in the
preparation of youth development plans.
Vietnam had invited her to help
them establish their own youth development program. She managed the
growth of the Youth Commission as an institution from an unknown
agency with a budget of P18 million to a highly regarded national
policy-oriented body with a budget of P140 million.
Rasul has the distinction of
speaking for the Group of 77 during the United Nations’ 10th
anniversary of the International Youth Year in 1995. As presidential
advisor on youth affairs, she focused attention on the plight of
vulnerable and disadvantaged youth, including those in areas of
conflict, foreign-occupied or alien-dominated territories, refugee
and displaced youth, indigenous youth and those with disabilities
were of particular concern to the international community.
Passionate about giving the Moros
an effective voice in mainstream society, Rasul organized the
Philippine Council for Islam and Democracy (PCID) in 2002 together
with former Human Rights Commissioner Nasser Marohomsalic and the
late Abraham Iribani, former MNLF spokesman.
Concerned about the false and
negative image projected about Muslims in the media, she initiated
the Moro Times, the first supplement devoted to Muslim and Mindanao
issues published by The Manila Times.
Rasul continues to muster foreign
and local support for Mindanao concerns, such as human rights,
Islamic law, Islamic education, empowering the ulama and Muslim
women. She has written and edited several books on the Muslim
situation in the Philippines and is a columnist for The Times.
Champion for Muslim women’s
rights
Marie Claire magazine named civil
society advocate Yasmin Busran-Lao as among the top 25 “Women of
Substance” for her pioneering work in promoting Muslim women’s
rights. The US Embassy in Manila has conferred on Lao the Ninoy
Aquino Public Service Award for her indefatigable work in advancing
the rights of marginalized groups.
She founded Al-Mujadilah
Development Foundation Inc. in Marawi City that was inspired by a
Qur’anic (verse 58) Al-Mujadilah, which either means “The Women
who pleads” or “The Women who Seeketh [justice].” The
foundation’s main advocacy is seeking social justice and working
on issues related to women’s rights, good governance and peace
building.
The foundation has produced
pioneering publications such as the Primer on Code of Muslim
Personal Laws and the CEDAW primer in four Moro dialects.
Lao is also the second nominee of
the Abanse Pinay party-list group.
Labor leader and humanitarian
Bai Fatima Palileo Sinsuat is the
remarkable daughter of the late strongman Datu Blah Sinsuat. Not
content to be a pampered Maguindanao princess, she helped her father
organize labor.
In 1986, all dockworkers in the
Cotabato City port were members of the Progressive Labor Union,
which she headed. Union members reported that the princess gave
money to families with emergencies and bailed out laborers from
jail.
She was mayor of Upi, Maguindanao,
from 1980 to 1986 before her appointment as head of the ARMM Board
of Investments. She was appointed a member of the University of the
Philippines Board of Regents by former President Joseph Estrada and
served for three terms.
A pillar of the Red Cross in
Maguindanao for the last 30 years, Sinsuat is the first Muslim woman
elected to the national board of the Philippine National Red Cross.
She was chosen by the Philippine National Volunteer Service
Coordinating Agency as one of the country’s six outstanding
volunteers in 2003.
Sinsuat, now 67, was lauded for
her blood donation advocacy programs at the awarding ceremony last
December 10, 2003 at Malacañang, the official residence of the
Philippine President.
The communicator
Moro Times managing editor,
Samira Gutoc, believes in the power of media to promote a positive
image of the Moro. This 33-year-old has founded publications such as
Suara Kabataan, the Mindanao State University Law Gazette and
Arellano Law and Policy Review. She is also one of the pioneering
writers of www.bangsamoro.com, a Philippine web awardee. Samira’s
writings have been published nationally (Newsbreak magazine, the
Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippine Center for Investigative
Journalism) and internationally.
As a youth leader, she was the
first woman to become president of the UP Muslim Students
Association, the Muslim Youth and Students Alliance and executive
vice-president of the First National Youth Parliament. She is one of
the founding convenors of the Young Moro Professionals Network,
which aims to bridge the information divide between the mainstream
and the minorities.
When she was just 26, Samira was
recognized as the first Muslim woman to receive The Outstanding
Young Men (TOYM) 2001 by the Jaycees International for Youth in
Socio-Cultural Development. Awarded the Chevening Fellowship, she
studied at the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies.
Moro student activist
“To see the Moros succeed and
excel in various fields, to prove that we too can excel and to see
the Moro brethren live out of poverty and conflict.” So
proclaimed Shahana “Shan” Abdulwahid, a Sama from Zamboanga
City. She is the first Muslim-Filipino to hold the presidency of the
University of the Philippines Student Council.
Abdulwahid, who is currently
taking up her master’s in Islamic studies at UP, is a devout
Muslimah (Muslim woman). Islam is the basis of everything she does.
“Whatever I do is based on the
principles of Islam, and I am upholding Islamic teachings,”
Abdulwahid said during in an interview with Moro Times.
She still wears her hijab or head
covering. Those who know her describe her as “humble and quiet,”
sympathetic to the masses, a “radical” and “intelligent.”
She is the second child of Court
of Appeals Associate Justice Hakim Abdulwahid and Naida Edding
Abdulwahid.
The young woman graduated cum
laude from UP in 2006 and was a recipient of the Prince Salman
Scholarship Grant. In 2005, she was cited as one of the 50 Young
Achievers. Abdulwahid also received the President Macapagal-Arroyo
Leadership Award in 2001.
Anti-war poster girl
Articulate and adamant, Amirah
Ali “Mek-Mek” Lidasan is often interviewed while mobilizing
demonstrations. She continues the activism she displayed as a leader
of the student movement in Manila.
At age 33, she was elected the
first Muslim woman president of the National Union of Students of
the Philippines, after her stint as president of the University of
the Philippines Mass Communications Student Council.
A native of Parang, Maguindanao,
Lidasan belongs to the Iranon Muslim ethno-linguistic group. Her
family is one of the most influential families in Maguindanao
province. She, however, grew up in Manila where she took up her
elementary to college education.
Even as a child, Lidasan would
hold discussions with the mujahideen (women fighters) whenever she
went to Maguindanao for vacation. This exposure helped her
understand their lives and the essence of what the Moros are
fighting for.
She later co-founded the Moro
Christian People’s Alliance, working for the welfare of the
minorities. Entering politics, she became the national vice-chairman
of the Suara Bangsamoro party-list group. She has been traveling
here and abroad to gain media mileage of the human rights violations
in Sulu, Basilan and central Mindanao. In March 2007, she was part
of a Philippine human rights delegation that toured North America
and Europe, drawing international attention to the human rights
crisis in the Philippines.
Defender of the boat people
Mucha Shim Arquiza of Sulu
advocates for the rights of the Bajaus and Sama, two of the
more marginalized Moro groups based in Zamboanga, Sulu, Basilan and
Tawi-Tawi. The Moro beggars seen in Metro Manila are mostly Bajau
escaping the harsh life in Mindanao.
She organized a Zamboanga
City-based foundation called Lumah Ma Dilaut (House in the Sea) with
the slogan, “Lost Language, Banished People,” to give Bajaus
access basic services and livelihood programs.
Arquiza, who also dabbles in
writing poetry and literary essays, promotes the arts of the Sama
and Bajaus. “In promoting indigenous knowledge systems and
practices and in modeling appropriate and empowering education
program for reviving the spiritual and cultural energies of Sama
ethnic communities is nonetheless a self-fulfillment for its mostly
Muslim staff as their own personal jihad and a contribution to a
favorable da’wah environment,” she said.
She holds the distinction of
being the lone Moro woman to address the 10th Session of the Working
Group on Minorities organized by the United Nations Office of the
High Commission on Human Rights in Geneva in March 2004.
She was former secretary-general
of the Asian Muslim Action Network, an Asia-wide network of Muslims
working for human rights, peace and social justice through
intercultural and interfaith dialogue. She is also executive
director and senior researcher for an all-woman, mostly Moroland (an
indigenous community in the Philippines) research collective. The
aim of the organization (HAGS Inc.) is to work toward indigenous
women’s empowerment.
Protector of the lake
Omera Dianalan-Lucman, 59, was
the first Muslim woman to be appointed undersecretary. Serving the
Department of Social Welfare and Development from 2001 to 2004, she
oversaw the delivery of services to the Mindanao region. Prior to
her Social Welfare department, she was a board member of the
Cooperative Development Authority in 1993.
As an administrator representing
Mindanao, she caused the formulation of responsive policies
supporting sustainable development of cooperatives in Mindanao.
She earned her Bachelor of
Science in business administration from the Philippine
Women’s University and a master’s in business management from
the Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute.
After her government stint, she
led the formation of the Philippine Muslim Women Council, a national
federation of Muslim women. Mobilizing local and international
support, Omera Dianalan-Lucman has committed herself to the
protection of Lake Lanao, which she believes should be named a World
Heritage Site as it is one of the oldest lakes in the world.
First Muslim woman ambassador
Ma. Corazon Yap-Bahjin was born
to a small and frugal family in Jolo. Her links to the Tausug came
from her grandmothers and her late husband, Datu Samsuddin Bahjin of
Patikul, Sulu.
She graduated cum laude from the
University of Santo Tomas in 1967, majoring in English and theology.
The latter never fails to raise eyebrows whenever people learn that
Bahjin is a Muslim.
“Senator Enrile was surprised
when I told him so,” she said. In 1974 Bahjin obtained her Master
of Arts from the University of the Philippines.
Before embarking on a diplomatic
career, Bahjin was an educator. She taught at the Holy Trinity
College in Palawan (1967), at the Centro Escolar University (1972),
then at Palawan State University, where she eventually became an
assistant professor.
Amb. Bahjin rose from the ranks.
She started out as acting director of the Cultural Division of the
Office of Islamic Affairs (now the Office on Muslim Affairs) in
1982. She had her first assignment abroad as vice consul in Jeddah
in 1986. She went back to Manila in 1998 to become a director of the
Office of Middle East and African Affairs. In 1990, she served as
second secretary and consul in Amman, Jordan. In 1991 she was moved
to Cairo, where a year later she became the chargé d’Affaires.
Bahjin also served in Bangkok and
Beijing. She became the first Muslim woman to be appointed
ambassador in 2007 and later Foreign Affairs undersecretary.
At the center of her public
service is her faith. Bahjin always keeps a Qur’an in her office.
Every morning before she begins her routine, she turns to Sura Yasin
and reads to calm her mind and for guidance.
Not just a first lady
Bai Sandra Sinsuat Ampatuan Sema
is the first lady of Cotabato City, married to its mayor, Muslimen
Sema. It is a position that she takes seriously.
As city tourism head of Cotabato
and regional tourism chairman of Region 12, she has presided over
projects intended to preserve Muslim traditions. At the same time,
she sought to change the image of her city by initiating projects
like the Shariff Kabunsuan Festival, which was included as one of
the country’s tourist destinations listed on the Department of
Tourism calendar of festivals.
Sema values her traditions as a
Muslim woman and passionately believes that the young should be
taught the same. This same principle guided her stint as ARMM
Education Secretary, appointed by then Gov. Misuari.
She pushed for the integration of
the teaching of the Arabic language in ARMM schools. Sema, a leader
among the MNLF women, was later appointed by President Arroyo to be
the first Muslim Department of Education undersecretary because of
her expertise in developing madrasah education.
Mother of war victims
Baicon Cayongcat-Macaraya began
working with victims of the war after giving up her law studies in
Marawi City during the all-our-war in nearby Baloi, Butig, and other
parts of central Mindanao in 2000.
At age 36, she now serves as a
Philippine officer of the World Food Program of the United Nations
helping thousands access basic services.
Her public profile began early in
college, when she became the first woman to be elected student
regent of the Mindanao State University System. She later founded a
non-government organization, the Bangsamoro Youth Ranao Center for
Peace and Development, which oversaw the daily needs of thousands of
evacuees staying in schools.
Her organization tied up with
Tabang Mindanao and pioneered the Integration Return and
Rehabilitation Program to help displaced families get back on their
feet. Later, her group handled the reconstruction of about 500
houses, six mosques and five schools destroyed by fighting in
Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur.
For her community work, local
datus conferred on Macaraya the title, “Bai Labi Ko Shakba,”
in ceremonies held at Ditsaan Ramain, Lanao del Sur.
She helped organize innovative
campaigns, such as the Mothers for Peace Campaign, and hosted the
Peaceteach, a tele-conference for young people organized by the
United Nations Children’s Fund and its allied partners. She is
also a model of Modess’ “Aim High Pinay” campaign.
Muslimah dean
of Islamic studies
Dr. Carmen Abubakar has served
the academe most of her life, believing that teaching is a
profession that fulfills her because it allows her to nurture young
minds.
She said she knows that the core
of the Bangsamoro problem is rooted in the need for knowledge. She
is the only Muslim woman to be appointed dean in the prestigious
University of the Philippines, heading the UP Institute of Islamic
Studies for three terms.
Born in Jolo, Abubakar finished
her bachelor’s in education at the Notre Dame of Jolo College. She
started teaching at her alma mater, before going to UP Diliman to
finish an master’s. She then taught English at the high school
department of UP Baguio before heading back to Diliman to earn a
doctorate in Philippine studies.
Abubakar said the educational
situation in Muslim communities is “very poor,” as shown even in
the low levels of literacy in the ARMM. She said this implies that
the number of people who make enlightened and informed decisions is
also very low.
Stressing education as the fuel
for development, Abubakar said education has to be made more
accessible to people in rural areas, and government must be address
this.
“Quality education is
impossible to attain, if there is an absence of infrastructural
support,” she said.
A sought-after lecturer on
Islamic law here and abroad, Abubakar co-wrote the book The
Convention on the Rights of the Child and Islamic Law, Convergences
and Divergences: The Philippine Case, 2005, published by the UNICEF.
Voice of courage
Maguindanao’s Noraida Adang
Abdullah Karim delivered the keynote address in New York City for
receiving the “Voices of Courage” award in 2007. The award
is given annually by the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women
and Children to individuals or organizations from around the
world that have shown commitment to and leadership in promoting the
well-being of displaced women and children.
Karim, an internally displaced
person herself, is also the coordinator of the Food Assistance
Project for conflict-affected communities in Maguindanao, a project
in partnership with the World Food Program. She played a leading
role in the Literacy, Livelihood, and Food Sufficiency Project for
women and male youth that was field-tested for the World Bank. She
also headed the “Arms are for Hugging” project that initiated
the rebuilding of an elementary school in Inug-ug, Maguindanao, in
2002.
She was born in Cotabato City and
spent most of her formative years in Datu Piang in Maguindanao. Her
childhood and youth were marked by poverty, repeated displacement
because of armed conflict in Mindanao and by a determined desire to
survive.
Karim spent years assisting other
displaced Muslims in Metro Manila, organizing to meet basic needs,
and advocating for peace negotiations in Mindanao. The Peace
Agreement of 1996 set the stage for her return to Mindanao. She
became involved with local civil society organizations concerned
with human rights; advocated for the relief of displaced persons,
and initiated livelihood projects for poor women. She returned to
school in her native Cotabato City and obtained a social work degree
from De La Vida College in 1999.
Here comes the judge
Nurkarhati Salapuddin Sahibbil
was one of the thousands of devout young Muslim girls educated in
the Catholic Notre Dame of Jolo. Graduating magna cum laude, she
never thought she would be thrust into a controversial position.
She was happy to be a wife and
mother of six, working with the Jolo Shariah Court as clerk of court
from 1985 to 1993 to help support the family.
But Sahibbil has always been
strong-willed and a fighter for rights and justice. Not content to
merely document cases and decisions, she took the Shariah bar exam
in 1991 and passed.
She then applied to be a Shariah
court judge. This created a controversy. Many Muslim men in the
Office of Muslim Affairs objected to a woman being appointed judge.
But she is a formidable advocate who does not give up easily.
Sahibbil is known to be the matriarch of her clan whose quiet word
is followed. Against all odds, she was appointed in 1994 and became
the first Muslim judge of the Shariah court system.
Sahibbil is looking forward to
the implementation of the Shariah system in all-Muslim communities,
as promised in the 1996 peace agreement between government and the
MNLF. She laments the lack of access of most Muslims to an Islamic
court and their lack of knowledge of their rights and obligations.
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