Who is afraid of the Bangsamoro?

“Islam is the religion or faith (the way of Allah) while Muslims are those who believe in Islam and attempt to practice it. Islam is an issue of theology. However, what Muslims (human fallible people) make of Islam is an arena open to social scientific inquiry. In other words, how human beings understand and apply Islam in their contemporary realities and daily lives is at least an area of debate not only in the present but also throughout the past history of Muslim communities.” -  Ayesha Imam 

I had a Muslim woman as a godmother at baptism. I have devoted more than two decades of my life working in Muslim communities all over Mindanao.
Actually, our work in Muslim communities is national because our reform proposals are addressed to changing national laws. 
Even as we adhere to the notion that not everything done by Muslims are Islamic and that what is Islam is always being reinterpreted and debated, we believe that Quranic teachings are ultimately about justice and equality. 

A survey research was conducted by our center,  PILIPINA Legal Resources Center (PLRC) in the Philippines on the extent of usage, attitudes, aspirations and behavior of Muslim women in relation to the Code of Muslim Personal Laws (CMPL).

It was found out, among others, that majority of the Muslim women were not familiar about their official legal rights. The solution to the problem of lack of legal literacy is easy. The greater problem, as the survey indicated, is that women’s lack of autonomy is largely cultural and justified by invoking customary laws and religious traditions.

This worldview affects the individual’s ability to participate in every level of social life – from decision-making within her home and family, to education, employment and public life.
Our research findings led us to outreach projects to overcome the problems revealed in the understanding of Muslim women concerning their rights under the law in the Philippines.

We did legal literacy work popularizing the Code of Muslim Personal Laws and promoting an alternative formulation in keeping with the gender equality provision of the Philippine Constitution.

We worked with Shari’a court judges, community stakeholders and policymakers and one of the resulting shapes was the creation of a government search committee that appointed judges to the vacancies in the Shari’a courts and the appointment of women judges which is a showcase to the rest of the Muslim world which still believe that women cannot be judges. 

The Code of Muslim Personal Laws (CMPL) remains as law for all Muslims in the Philippines although it is deemed outdated and contradictory to some 1987 Constitutional provisions, the current organic act (R.A. 9054) for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and international laws. Earlier, former Congressman Michael Mastura, one of the authors of the current CMPL suggested test litigation as an alternative track to the process of legal reform that we were advocating. 

Since legal reform proved difficult, our alternative strategy was engagement with the Sharia court judges on current standards under the UN CEDAW.
We published a Benchbook within the framework of UN CEDAW which may guide Shari’a judges in resolving cases involving Muslim women.

When norms and standards are legislated, these become sources of specific rights that are accessible, enforceable and demandable. Thus, human made legislations such as the Code of Muslim Personal Laws need to be revisited and interfaced with current standards, which have universal mandates such as the UN CEDAW. 
That a community of nations shares this standard is an indication that the promotion of equality between women and men cannot be compromised by making reference to an ever-changing culture or human made religious interpretations and practices. 

The UN CEDAW is now thirty years old and have been ratified by one hundred eighty-six (186) states, which is a great majority of all countries in the world. Gender equality and non-discrimination are now principles of international customary law.

The Philippines, to date, has yet NO official policy on reproductive health and family planning and these are parts of our treaty obligation to the UN CEDAW. As was reported recently by Rappler, “the Philippines is one of the best places to be a woman, based on the latest World Economic Forum (WEF) survey released on October 24. In the 2012 Global Gender Gap Index (GGI), the Philippines maintained its ranking in the top ten gender-friendly nations.”

But, to the extent that women have no control over their own bodies, this gender equality index is meaningless for us, women. But, yes, the Bangsamoro community has a fatwa ( or a decree made by an Islamic authority) on family planning.  
So, with some ustajes from the academe and with some members of the Technical Working Group of the Darul Ifta, we worked for the promotion of the fatwa as part of our reproductive rights program.