DIVORCE LAW NOW

The Philippines is now almost the only nation in the world which has no absolute divorce, except for Vatican City. When I shared this lately in an international group, they said that maybe it is one of the reasons why a whole community wants to secede from the Philippines. Italy where the Vatican is has recognized divorce a long time ago. I said almost because we have divorce among our Muslim communities. As an available option, absolute divorce which once existed in this country and available in Muslim communities, is very long overdue and should also be available as a remedy for majority of Filipinos. The absence of a divorce law for the majority of women in the Philippines is particularly oppressive for women trapped in violent marriages. Forever etched in my mind is the celebrated case of Maria Teresa Carlson, reportedly trapped in a very violent marriage and she tragically jumped to her death.

Then, in our communities, we have a village justice system that for purposes of maintaining what is their false concept of peace and harmony at home would opt for an “amicable settlement” among couples who are forever fighting and who clearly cannot be together anymore.

For now, only those who can afford the costly annulment process have access to the effects of absolute divorce. Which is why, we say that annulment is for the rich. A mother of my student recently spent more than half a million pesos for her annulment to happen. A cousin of mine who now lives in Paris recently engaged the services of a lawyer and as well she got an annulment from a far away court in exchange for a large sum. But, I also know of many friends and neighbors who wish to be separated from their husbands but the costs of annulment are so prohibitive.

In the case of Muslims and in keeping with fundamental Quranic concepts of justice and equality, divorce is part of the Islamic complete code of life around the world. Among our Muslim sisters and brothers in the Philippines, they have one of the most sophisticated laws on divorce. A woman can divorce her husband through mutual agreement or by returning the dower or mahr. The mahr is nuptial gift or dowry given to the wife by the husband which is an essential requisite of a Muslim marriage contract. Or a Muslim woman can orally divorce her husband – if she has demanded this in her marriage contract – or by just placing the delegated right of divorce in the marriage contract. The challenge is to popularize this legal option as most Muslim women are not aware that she can opt for this delegated right of oral divorce in the marriage contract. Of course, all divorces should be registered so that when a woman remarries she will not be liable for adultery or zina.


That a community of nations in the whole world shares a remedy called divorce and that it is not yet available to the majority of Filipinos for the longest time now are very revealing and disturbing. Long ago, many Catholic majority countries – Spain, Brazil, Ireland , Mexico , Portugal and all of Latin America – have recognized divorce.

So, the passage of law on divorce will formalize an existing extra legal remedy of separation in fact. The divorce law will be a right and a remedy accessible to those who need to move on from a marital arrangement that is not working anymore.

Sexual Rights Coalition : A Glimpse of the Other Side of the World

I descended from the Istanbul airport a few days ago with a grand view of the two continents of Europe & Asia and the bridge connecting them in the narrowest waterway.
In Istanbul, one is able to cross the two continents of Asia and Europe in two minutes.
The highways were strewn with tulips bursting in various hues and avant- garde colors.
The magnificent mosques, marvels of architecture are testaments to the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, once upon a time great empires of the world.

The international meetings convened by our Coalition for Sexual & Bodily Rights ( CSBR) are plots to change the world towards the promotion of sexual & bodily rights as human rights.
Our meetings start with a briefing on the political context of each of our countries.
So, we got feminist perspectives of the recent revolutions in the North African countries of Tunisia, & Egypt and recent events in Lebanon, Pakistan, Turkey, Malaysia & Indonesia.

The sense was that in these revolutions, religious fundamentalisms were not articulated; these historic events are for now just basically about a break from an old regime.
Where these revolutions will lead them still remains to be seen.
In Tunisia, a model of sorts in secularism, the feminists are afraid that they might lose the gains of the past century.
Tunisia is one of two countries in the Muslim world that has legally not allowed polygamy.
There is an apprehension that the feminist movements are narrowly seen as anti- religious fundamentalism and this is a limited reading because in reality women’s discourses are about everything oppressive.
But, the women are happy that recent revolutions in their countries have brought about a sense of citizenship and a democratic interest in politics.
In a related sense, I said that the Philippines is a veteran of people power revolutions but that after decades we are still so poor and so mired in systemic corruption.
The major lesson for the Philippines is to be able to continually harness the gains of the revolution towards the well being of our nation and the tasks are found in day to day moments & challenges which are as crucial as the challenges of a few days historic revolutions.

In turn, the Palestinian women are able to relate the issue of land and the issue of body politics.
The direction of technology in Israel is based on security.
The long standing issue of security on Palestine soil is related to what they call the “bodily geography of fear.”
There is no security for land as there is no security for women’s own bodies.
So- called honor crimes, archaic concepts are still the norm.
Honor crimes and honor killings done in the name of chastity and the false ideology that men own women’s bodies are NOT unlike our own crimes of passion in the Philippines.
Still, we are proud to say that it is to the credit of the women’s movement in the Philippines that we have re-classified rape as a crime against persons instead of a crime against chastity because rape is about violence and has nothing to do with chastity.
This is about the use of language or “naming” or “branding” in order to bring about a change in behavior through law or policy.

Anyway, for the Palestinian women, their perception of daily political oppression which they call the “politics of everydayness” is producing a backlash and it is these reactions to the oppression that will always be the impetus for big cultural changes and people power revolutions.

From Turkey, we were aghast to learn that the YOU TUBE is banned in their country.
 Censorship is getting worse.
The agency in-charge of communications has recently drawn up a list of so called obscene words and has asked hosting companies to not use these words as domain names.
The justification is a law that forbids “ hosting company of websites falling under the scope of catalogue crimes ( obscenity, prostitution, sexual abuse, of children etc )…”
It is so disheartening to find these restrictions from Turkey.
It so is ironic because Istanbul prides itself as one of the European capitals of culture.
It is such a misnomer to regard culture as an artifact of past grandeur and glory because culture must be a dynamic tool for the promotion of basic freedoms such as our freedom of expression.

But, there is much scope for progressive post modern future for Turkey, not because it is a country that has desired to get European Union accession and membership since the past decade but because the people’s movements like our Coalition for Sexual & Bodily Rights ( CSBR) are seriously vigilant and passionately working to protect our basic human rights.

Random Reflections on Holy Holidays

My holy week started with preparations to send off Kaye, mi unica hija for work in Manila.
Now, I am coping with what is called the empty nest syndrome or the feeling that parents experience when a child leaves home to study or work.
The feelings are both sadness and joy not unlike the sadness and joy of the holy season.
The sadness is akin to that of a post partum depression or when a long drawn out project is over.
The joy is the empathy for the excitement of a child turned adult who is trying on “life’s uniforms” and infinite possibilities away from our smothering and overprotection.

My apprehension is probably due to the fact that the Manila that I knew is not the same anymore. Manila has deteriorated so much over the years.
The floods come every year like clockwork; the face of the flood is etched in our minds as the ONDOY flood. My other fear is that much of Manila sits on an earthquake belt. So, I “ Eat, Pray and Love.” Seriously, I told my daughter to eat healthy and have faith. We both believe in the credo that faith is a lot like love and hope.

During the holy week, we hope to have respite from all the bombardment through television of all that is bad in Philippine politics.
After all the House and Senate hearings on corruption in aid of legislation, our government leaders must reflect now on the goals of our government spending.
Subsidies are crucial for our agrarian sector. Public spending on our human resources through education is an important investment.

As to revenue generation through taxes, that our government is paying attention to tax evasion by people from the center of wealth & power is an iconic gesture that should send a strong message to correctly establish the ideal relationship between the government and the citizen taxpayer.
As the saying goes, death and taxes are the only two things certain in life.

In history, we remember our heroes and activist forefathers and mothers who campaigned against “taxation without representation.”
Still, it is inefficient to collect taxes from the poor.
It is inefficient as the cost of collection is high because the taxable units are small.
The poor are our farmers and fisherfolks in the agrarian sector whose incomes are seasonal or our urban poor whose incomes are unstable.

Then, while my daughter and I were looking at the range of work options in Manila, I discover that the friends I went to school with or worked with are now the rulers and leaders of the land as cabinet members or the leaders in President Noy's team (PNoy), congresswomen and men, solicitor general, Justices, Comelec Directors, Deans of universities, or heads of social, economic and political institutions of our country.
So, I feel the faith again.
We, together with these leaders that we know so very well are directly responsible for the social, economic and political prognosis of the Philippine Republic.
For me, this feels like a renaissance and the renewal of Easter that I am looking forward to.

Libyan Leader Losing Legitimacy

AS graduate students in social science, we would assess one’s savvy in international politics if a fellow student had read or heard of Colonel Gadhafi’s (Muammar Muhammad al-Gaddafi ) 1975 Green Book which was a socialist and nationalist political philosophy.
We first knew the Colonel who dons safari suits and sunglasses as a revolutionary who overthrew a Libyan monarchy and dreamed to unite the Arab world.
Already, he was a declared socialist before the fall of the Soviet empire.

Then, in 1976, he hosted our Tripoli Agreement or the first peace agreement between the Philippines and the Moro National Liberation Front.

Let me share how my anthropologist friend Carol Gamiao, my roomate in a University of the Philippines residence hall captures that period:

“ I remember him well for his Green Book which he brought to the Philippines – printed in the Philippines, too since I had all volumes of his little Green Book.
(My professor was contractor for his Manila workshop and promotion tour.)
Had them but did not really read seriously because it was not too coherent. It was attempt at an alternative to Capitalism and Communism – like our Revolution from the Center.
Ours was better, of course. An enlightened despot was kind of chic at that time – strong leadership in Third World – Mahathir, Marcos, etc. Reaction to US-style democracy that they said was not suited to our particular conditions as developing nations.
It was an emerging economy, new wealth with oil and all.
Like Marcos, he could have succeeded too, with vision and heart and mind.
So, in my old age, I still believe what I knew then that all revolutions need to start from within – people – individually. With vision of a great leader. Remember, we had at that time, “Sa ikauunlad ng bayan, disiplina ang kailangan…” We did not get there.

"And what else I remember is based on the stories of our dorm mate, a member of the UP Concert Chorus, who occupied a room just across our room at the dorm. Imelda Marcos went to Libya and sang Dahil sa Iyo before Gadhafi’s tent in the desert.
And then, Imelda asked him to render her a song in return.
Oh, Imelda and her wild ways. Gadhafi’s mother was very upset that some woman dares tell him what to do.
I think we were then asserting our independence from the US Bases by courting everyone that could ensure our oil supply. Them were the days.

"But the future is bleak. I dread to think about what this whole mess has in store for us all.
Al Qaeda is fighting with him?
These days, I just don’t read the news anymore – and if I do, just force myself to be positive and not contribute any more to the negativity. We’re all in this together, that’s the rub.”

In 2009, during Gadhafi’s address at the United Nations’s 64th session of the UN General Assembly where he reportedly called the UN Security Council as a “Terror Council”, the colonel, as reports indicated, wanted to put up a tent in Central Park but was allegedly met with protests.

Today, as one of the longest running rulers of the world having been in power in Libya for four decades, Colonel Gadhafi is fighting for his political life.
The recent pro-democracy protests that started in Tunisia and Egypt has spread to Libya. Given that there is a long standing movement and campaign to overthrow Colonel Gadhafi, the political protests are not really a surprise nor unexpected.
What is unexpected is Gadhafi’s holding on to power by a thread despite international pressure. Gadhafi’s crackdown on the political protests has resulted to a reported hundreds of deaths of civilians in recent days.

Any human rights activist is sure to say that Gadhafi’s crackdown against protesters resulting to deaths is a crime against humanity and is punishable under Article 7 of the Rome Statute or the law creating the International Criminal Court. It has also been reported that a religious ruling or fatwa has been issued calling for the killing of Gadhafi for the crime committed against Libyans.

This is an interface of history and biography and women’s place in this unfolding geopolitics drama is to constantly promote human rights through peaceful political reforms.
Very big words but we always start the action by naming and framing the issues.

100th International Women's Day: the Philippines

Today is about women. Today, as we celebrate the 100th International Women's Day, we pay tribute to the migrant women workers in New York who, while working in inhuman working conditions at a textile sweat shop factory, met tragic death. That was about a century ago. Today, we celebrate the gains even as we still grapple with gargantuan gaps in our goals towards gender equality.

What are we celebrating?

The Davao City government last year passed the Reproductive Health Ordinance that gave birth to the setting up of health clinics where families could access government interventions and programs related mostly to children and women’s health needs. This is an icon ordinance that should be emulated by other local government units.

To fulfill our state obligation to the elimination of discrimination, the Magna Carta of Women of the Philippines was passed in 2009. This law has legislated substantive equality in social, economic and political spheres of our lives. As such, it has provisions on women’s right to health and access to services…. “ responsible, ethical, legal, safe and effective methods of family planning….”

The Regional Legislative Assembly of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao has approved an ARMM Gender & Development Code. We are told the office of the ARMM governor will sign it into law on March 30, 2011, in celebration of the Women’s Month.

That we are able to rest assured that if we write the United Nations Cedaw Committee as victims of discrimination as defined in the CEDAW, we have their full attention. That we can invoke the Optional Protocol to Cedaw which is a separate treaty to which the Philippines is a signatory and it allows us women who have been denied access to justice at the national level to have our claims reviewed at the international level.

As a result of women’s advocacy following the communication of Karen Vertido before the UN Cedaw Committee, there is now an indication that the Philippines should develop a sexuality and violence education training program for judges and prosecutors in the Philippines. To our Congress, the UN Cedaw Committee recommends that the laws against rape in our country be reviewed and that our country allocate enough funds for enforcement.

As an acknowledgment that indeed many people around the world are killed every year because of their sexual orientation, the good news in 2010 was that the outcome of voting at the United Nations which is to protect the Lesbians, Gay, Bi-sexuals & Transgenders (LGBT) people from extrajudicial executions has been finalized in the direction to restore the reference to sexual orientation.

In a historic move last year, the United Nations created UN Women, a new single agency out of four UN bodies to promote women’s rights and their full participation in global affairs will reinforce its expression in individual countries. More importantly, this merger includes a UN budget of
$500 million a year for projects towards elimination of gender discrimination.

In closing, let me count some of the big challenges ahead of us.

A majority of our women are still poor, victims of violence and excluded from positions of power and authority.

It has been reported by various groups in a March 8 statement that “ in 2009, 71,000 Filipino women left the country to work as workers/helpers in households; they made up 21 percent of the newly hired in the top 10 job categories abroad. “

The most tragic face of our government’s deployment of workers abroad is that some of these women economic refugees are facing death in foreign lands.

The Internet & Search Engine Optimization

A writer must empathize with her audience and so I must always be attuned to what my readers want to know. Many of us were born before the Internet was invented and so this piece is for those of us who are catching up with this electronic age. So, since many of my readers are into the marketing of ideas, we might as well be well versed in knowledge management through the Internet. Knowledge management ( KM) is simply a set of systems or practices that individuals or organizations use in creating and marketing of ideas, insights and experiences.

I am now linked to a national group of bloggers and political pundits who are into electronic marketing of ideas and so let me share with you some tips. For example, how do we promote our websites? This is the concern of the webmasters or content providers which could be you. The first tip is to use keywords that are search engine friendly from the title tag to the content. Google, Yahoo and Bing are examples of search engines. Savvy webmasters are skilled in website design, menus, content management, imbedding images & videos, etc. To promote a website or a blog, a content writer must use frequently searched keywords and must be in touch with what people want to know or are frequently searching. A writer who wants to be on the first page of a search engine result, among others, must understand the concept of search engine optimization ( SEO). Good SEO ( white hat ) is simply effective marketing of the website and there are yet no laws for this. For now, the guidelines are simply that what a search engine like Google or Yahoo or Bing catalogs ( or indexes) and orders in a hierarchy of search results and ultimately publishes in the search results are the exact results that Internet users want to see.

But, keywords can also be abused by webmasters such as when popular title keywords are not represented in the content of the website or in individual pieces in the blog or website. I have also come across some gray practices in the Internet. For example, what are the ethics involved when another website uses my entire web page ? A profit oriented travel website used my non profit blog entry and all I could do was ogle at the travel website page which was imbedded with a galore of advertisements. Is acknowledgement and attribution enough? I would prefer also to be sent a copy or link or thread of the usage. In fairness, the website owner retained my byline and so perhaps it can be argued that my own website was promoted, as well.

The URL is the address of a website page and I have promoted some of my work by sharing URL links to popular websites or even popular Facebook accounts. For example, if I want to share information about peace talks then I attach the URL of my published work or the link to the popular Facebook account of the chief peace negotiator.

A likeabilty feature can also be imbedded in your website. It has been determined by a group of bloggers that a blog or website entry is likeable when it is friendly, it has relevance, have empathy and the information is ready. It has empathy when it is able to feel others or when it is able to capture what people want to know.

What do people want to know? In truth, it is really different for various audiences across generations, across social classes, across gender and sexual orientation, religion and belief systems, and various persuasions. So, the challenge is to capture what most everyone and all want to know.

When one is in the business of sharing knowledge through the Internet one will experience sheer joy when one’s work lands on page one of the search results of popular search engines.

Two Oscar Winner Films 2011 : How women are represented

WOMENWISE, Opinion Page, Mindanao Times
Best Oscar Films in 2011
Written by: Antonio , Isabelita Solamo
Wednesday, 02 March 2011

THE Oscar awarding ceremony is a must see for many of us who regard the cinema as our site of fantasy and imagination. Filming is about the real versus representation. The filmmaker is the author of a story being told on the cinema. But, stories told in cinema are also authored by many spectators through various interpretations.

I wish to review with you two films that caught my fancy in this year’s Oscar season. Let us start with the Black Swan, a film by movie director Darren Aronofsky. The story is told through the world of ballet and dance. Perfection as performed in the world of dance is something that extracts a price. That price is madness, nervous breakdown and loneliness. Nina Sayers, played by Natalie Portman is an ambitious ballerina straining to come to grips with stardom. Nina’s singular obsession as the perfect ballet dancer has led to her imbalanced development as a person. Her mental illness initially manifests as rashes that turn to wounds and eventually she experiences visions. And all these are portrayed as the so called “ price of perfection” in the climb to genius and stardom. The other price is isolation. The ballet dancer has no social skills and has not developed any friendships. Her world devolves around Erika, her smothering mother played by Barbara Hershey who relives her unfulfilled dream of being a ballet dancer through her daughter.

Peter Bradshaw of London’s The Guardian says of the movie, “ It is about fear of penetration, fear of our body, fear of being supplanted in the affections of a powerful man, love of perfection, love of dance….” My own feminist insight is to ask ourselves : Is this what we want women to do? Do we want women to be represented as fearful of success and sexually naïve? Do we want women to be represented as the gender prone to wasting opportunities and gifts?

INCEPTION

The second movie on my list is Inception written by the famousChristopher Nolan of the Knight Rider fame. This movie which is one of the current highest commercial top income earners is also already reputed to be one of the greatest sci-fi films of all time. It is mostly told from the point of view of Domm Cobb played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who is a specialized spy who can access other people’s dreams. In the story, this skill or gift is being used as a weapon of corporate espionage thievery. Cobb involves his wife in this pleasure of staying in a dream site and this led to the wife being hooked in the unreal world of dreams and ultimately led to a point where the wife decides to commit suicide in order to wake up from her dream. Cobb is charged for the death of his wife and so he has to escape as a fugitive.

While in hiding, Cobb is offered an assignment to influence the subconscious of an heir apparent to a large business energy empire. The goal is for the heir to cut his energy empire into small pieces when his old man dies. In the movie, the project is called inception or the introduction of an idea into the subconscious of another through dreams and stealing secrets that are revealed in dreams. All these “ dream stealing” is done on a flight from Sydney to New York through the introduction of a sedative that will make one dream and dream within a dream. The movie ends with Cobb reunited with his two children but it is not clear whether this is still a dream state or reality. This is a very philosophical movie about objective reality and the so – called projections of reality. In this sense, this is the ultimate movie about fantasy and imagination.

In both Black Swan & Inception, women are deployed as dead heroines. So, I am hoping for a change in this genre and how women are represented. Still and all, these two films are wonderful to watch.