The Arroyo Last State of the Nation Address

I like to rapporteur & so let me compile the various comments on President Gloria Macapagal - Arroyo’s State of the Nation Address ( SONA) before Congress.

The comments on various blogs are voluminous.

On the day of the SONA, the “tweeting information highway” was so full.
In this year’s SONA, President Arroyo, outlined her achievements since 2001 and as well discussed her priority programs and legislative agenda.
Reading her lips, most said that she did not make a categorical remark about her plans after her term ends in 2010.
And anyway, even if she did, people will always remember the Rizal Day remark that she will not seek re-election but ran anyway in 2004 for President again.
Since, we are into memory lane mode, I remember that in year 2000, when everyone was calling for the ouster of President Estrada, then Vice President Gloria took time in joining the ouster call until after two years into the term of then President Estrada or two years after 1998.

The explanation of some political analysts were that the following constitutional provision may have been taken into account “ No person who has succeeded as President and has served as such for more than four years shall be qualified for election to the same office at any time. “

And so, it seems, that even as early as year 2000, there was legal planning towards 2010.

In the seventies, during the debates on how long a president of a country should serve, we said, four years is too short for a good president while six years is too long for a bad president.

In 2010, President Gloria will have served as President for ten years already.
The clarion call of the Change Politics Movement, Tindignation and many others who staged protest rallies all over the country is that this should be Gloria Arroyo’s last SONA and for her to dismount at the end of her term, pave the way for the 2010 elections and to say NO to charter change moves via a constituent assembly at this juncture in time.

President Gloria said "Governance is not about looking back and getting even. It is about looking forward and giving more--to the people who gave us the greatest, hardest gift of all: the leadership of a country, the care of a nation.”
Some commentators took issue with this because, accordingly, one must be accountable for one’s actions because, otherwise, we will be promoting impunity.

The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) President and Jaro Archbishop Angel N. Lagdameo said that the many achievements mentioned were the work of many people in the bureaucracy and as such all in the governance sector must also take responsibility for all our failures.

The Manolo Quezon blog summarized the SONA in three brief sentences which generated various comments : A) Don’t count me out. B) Cha-Cha is a go. C)
We will mobilize vs. certain presidential candidates.

President Arroyo also mentioned that during her father’s watch as President, the Philippines was second to Japan in economic performance.
How do we reclaim that performance?
Admitted, our gross domestic product grew during President Arroyo’s term, but we also judge our economic growth by the way our neighbors are performing.
Most of all, that reported growth is not trickling down yet.
Still, we remain hopeful as ever.
Even the feisty Senator Francis Escudero, who also hoped that Arroyo said goodbye already in her last line, agrees with the following proposals of President Arroyo:
"condonation of 42 billion pesos in obligations of CARP beneficiaries;
continuation of the hunger mitigation program;
concentrating on revenue collection efficiency;
a knowledge-based economy as the way of the future; and, exploring the settlement of conflicts via talks instead of bullets, with exception of terrorists.”

Finally, our manifesto as ordinary citizens should be to feel some responsibility for all the ills of our nation and as such we must continue to share our bit of contribution towards the achievement of our goals as a nation.
Describing our problems and doing something about them are big steps already.

The Changing Economic Landscape & the Philippines

The ideas that I am sharing here now are still inspired by the conversations and papers presented at my alumni reunion at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex in Great Britain. One of the big topics tackled is the changing economic landscape and we kept referring to the old world starting the year 1492, because as Tom Lines, an expert on trade & development, who was one of the keynote speakers at the opening of the 2009 IDS Alumni Reunion said in his concluding remarks, “ My final, final thought is about the very widest landscape, and the extent of the hegemony crisis we might be facing. The banking crash of 2008 may well mark as big a turning point in world history as 1492, the year of Columbus’ first voyage to America. This symbolically marked the start of 500 years in which European countries, and their offshoots like the US, dominated the world….”
Should the United States undergo structural adjustment, as we know it, since it is now the biggest debtor nation in the world? Perhaps, the conditions or prescriptions of the U.S. government to huge banks and financial institutions that it bailed –out and the reforms in the education and health sectors are some forms of structural adjustments to cushion the impact of the crisis. In the so called Third World Debt Crisis of 1982, countries in debt like Mexico, the Philippines and the others have had to undergo structural adjustment ( read : import liberalization and shift to an export oriented economy). Obviously, for the Philippines, these prescriptions are not working. On cursory examination, one difference is that the Philippines is a democratic country ( at least in tradition or policy) while the emerging successful markets in East Asia like China, Singapore, South Korea or the tiger economies are more authoritarian nation states or state–controlled economies.
Some economists have labeled the global economic crisis, which started in 2007 in the United States as the “First World Debt Crisis.” Describing vividly our changing landscape, let me quote Tom Lines again,

….” The broader policy conclusion is also opposed to that of the 1980s Debt Crisis: not that free market policies must be pursued but that this crisis demonstrates their failure, so more regulation and a bigger role for government will be needed…. Now the US is the biggest debtor nation. Its capacity for economic hegemony has ended. Of the biggest creditors, only one (Germany) is part of the tradition which grew out of Europe. The others are China, Japan, Brazil, India and Russia (which is only partly European and lies outside that tradition for its own historical reasons). By far the biggest creditor is China: an up-and-coming country, self-sufficient and inward-looking (although hardly young), and unwilling to take on a dominant role at present. One thing is clear: whatever power relations may finally emerge, the previous Core: Periphery arrangement has been upset, probably for ever…. If the US no longer has the economic power to control things, and that power is moving to China or Japan or India, it marks a far bigger cultural shift than that of the 20th Century from one English-speaking, Common Law country (the UK) to another (the US). Power relations are indeed changing, but in view of the horrific events in Europe between 1914 and 1945 it leaves me with some apprehension about where this crisis might lead before a new settlement is reached. “
As we say, the shortest distance to trading with the new emerging economies like China is language, to start with. Mandarin, Fookien, Cantonese will be the new chic languages. We will have to get used to yuan, China’s currency which up to now most of us have not used. It helps that Filipinos, and most everyone in the world, are already into things Chinese. There is a Chinatown in virtually all cities of the world. We just wish that events such as Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 which culminated in the infamous Tiananmen Square massacre and all the human rights violations allegedly associated with it are not part of our future. It is a tribute to Asian human rights defenders under the auspices of our regional organization Forum-Asia that they are crafting a human rights mechanism to parallel the crafting of the Asean human rights mechanisms at the ASEAN. The other important proposed reform is a regional United Nations in this part of the world because the United Nations which was born in the wake of the Second World War was precisely created so that we will never again have to have a repeat of the untold sorrows of world wars.

What The World Needs Now : Notes From England

England - I am here for my alumni reunion at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex.

 IDS “aims to understand and explain the world, and to try to change it- to influence as well as to inform.”

In this two day meeting, the alumni are scholarly articulating the problems of the world and plotting what development work needs to be done in a changing landscape and shifting geopolitics.

One of the major theses that needs to be communicated is that reduction of so much inequality should be done with or without the global economic crisis.

Among others, the global economic crisis is a failure of the banking and financial systems and so one proposal is not to deal with the economic crisis because to spend much time in terms of more research to produce more knowledge for something that has happened already will be derailing in many ways.
The lessons of the global economic crisis speak for themselves or to wax Latin :Res ipsa loquitor.

This call is to let the economic crisis evolve and hope it will metamorphose into a less virulent strain.
 It is more efficient to focus on something that is sure to change the world and that is to work on instruments towards reducing inequality without excluding the importance of economic growth.

The alumni are poised to embark on a project that believes that reducing inequality can be one of the solutions to the global economic crisis.
This 2009 crisis is a crisis at the core ( rich) affecting both core and periphery (poor.)
 Hubert Schmitz, IDS research fellow working on globalization, thinks that to concentrate work on the poor countries is limiting because “ concentrating on the dependent variable ‘poverty’ would cut off from understanding the dynamics which leads to shifts in poverty and prosperity.”
In short, former poor countries in East Asia which are now the so called emerging markets are driving the changes in the center.

Definitely, we need a new language or discourse or paradigm or new conversations to describe the changing development landscape.
In these uncertain times, the task is to ask the right question.
It was noted that in our management of these uncertain financial times, some of the myriad of responses are mistaken views to go exclusively global or focus exclusively on the local when the response should be integrating both the global and local.
There is a disconnect between macro and micro economics and the task is to articulate the discourse between the macro and micro or to find the middle space between the big picture and the small picture.

There is no one shared view on development perspectives.
Development policies are most often influenced by voices from positions of power and authority.
Which is why in this age of mobile phones and internet connection, it is important to hear different perspectives or to hear our own local stories of what we think the changes should be.

Making the world a better place is not a monopoly of development experts.
One challenge put forward by Professor Lawrence Haddad, head of the Institute of Development Studies is how to successfully collaborate with other voices such as the private sector, or the great majority who are very connected via information technology who are “just getting on with their work and who are not too bothered whether the self designated development experts work with them or not.”


https://www.flickr.com/photos/ids_uk/sets/72157621859137086
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ids_uk/sets/72157621859137086/

Let me share a feedback about the above piece ( What The World Needs Now)  from an economist  in Wall Street, New York  who studied at the Wharton School of business on the ailing economy of the United States :

“The US condition does not keep me awake at night, but it disturbs me...Great powers of course in most cases, do not instantly collapse (though Russia quickly unraveled not too long ago).  They tend to linger, remain relatively wealthy, though with less influence in the world.

The US dollar does bother me...It is a matter of time as to when it will experience a big decline...There might be like a sand pile phenomenon...you never know when the last grain of sand will cause the sand pile to collapse.

China will never flex its global powers until it has too.  I think it operates consistent with my view:  one should not make unnecessary enemies.  Messianic powers (e.g. US) often do...and they get conflicted between their self-interest and their messianic goals of imposing freedom and democracy.”  

ON WRITING

Every columnist writes to be read. Apart from the pressure of a due date, writing is its own reward and its own sense of fulfillment. Of course, writing is work as school is work. What to write? The great writer Hemingway said in Paris in his book, A Moveable Feast , “…. All you have to do is write one true sentence. ….and then go on from there. It was easy because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say….” In the movie, The Weatherman, the character of Michael Caine told his son, played by Nicolas Cage, who felt so inadequate as an aspiring writer, that writing is something that Caine has had to develop over the years as a craft. Indeed, all things are learned. In school, we all went through THEME WRITING and taught to be coherent and to be able to write what we mean.

It surely helps to write if one is a voracious reader. But, Ralph Waldo Emerson said that one needs to spend more time thinking and writing one’s own thoughts instead of reading other people’s thoughts and transcripts all the time. For this, one needs a room of one’s own to be able to withdraw from all the hustle and bustle of life. Stephen King said in his book, On Writing, “ It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn’t in the middle of the room. Life isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other way around.”

photo credit : Title Wave a Facebook page 

What to write for my column in my city ( Davao City) in the Philippines? To be sure, the Davao City literati ( the businessmen, office workers from private & government, the students in the library, the depositors in banks & passengers while waiting, health patients while waiting for their turn in hospitals, housewives, etc ) will want to read. For my assignment in this local daily, the ideal as suggested by a friend is to capture a readership from many walks of life especially on themes addressing women's issues. But, all issues are women’s issues so the metes & bounds are limitless. One can easily lose the reader if one writes quoting grand theories without specific examples.

I was advised that the trick always is to select issues -- closer to the readers' concerns-- and then intersperse these with how the world community is addressing the problem so that the reader can get a sense of how he/she should act, and can see models from other countries -- whether that is to lobby the Davao City council, the regional development council, or national legislators or organize with other NGOs, etc. So, it has been best for me to plan a series, and develop an outline for the next columns as overall guide. I imagine myself reading the article to a typical reader when writing a topic and lace it with compelling issues that will draw my readers' attention. So, it is a must for me to know the recent events and current local condition and study the subject matter. I keep it in mind that it is not always the literati that I am addressing but all who can read.

Language is a social construction of reality. Which is why feminists have always been careful about reinforcing the invisibility of women when we write “he” to refer to both he and she. In writing about women’s issues, we make issues of women politically visible. We imagine an ideal against which we evaluate actual condition and practices.

Writing is symbolic representation. There is authorial intention and readers’ interpretation. A reader could be reading against the intention of the author. All text are cultural. We all have embodied experiences and it informs how we perceive things. The danger of representation is that any writing can be trivialized or oversimplified or read against the grain. Who has the power to determine meaning? In social science, we say, an observation is objective, if at least two or more persons read a thing the same way.

email : isabelita_solamo@yahoo.com

    Writing as messaging  and more 

   

I found out that some school libraries are collecting my columns as clippings on various themes. And as well, in this digital age, I am much pleased that Mindanao Times is also so accessible online. So, today as students are finishing papers and reports, I wish to demystify once more the world of words. First off, is to identify a theme or topic. Find a subject that you are passionate about or a theme that you want other people to know. Then, plot the frame or the outline. Finish the draft. Revise or polish later. Then, just write. 

 What is the message? Do you have something to say? Clarity of mind is important. Even if perspective is in the eye of the beholder, one’s perspective could be wrong or limited based on some standards. It is limited when it is not validated by the reality as you see it or some other desired ideal. What is real? A good tip is finding out whether two or more people look at the same thing the same way. This is sometimes called objectivity. Is it precise? Precision means repeatability as in one minute will yield 60 seconds when you repeat this process of counting for an infinite time. 

 We capture and write about a reality at a particular point in time and that reality changes all the time. So, information is dated all the time. I read recently that the farther you are from the source of illumination (existing knowledge or new things), the less you are going to change. My example for this is the explanation as to why we prefer to listen to old songs. Mostly, we like to listen to old songs simply because we have not heard of the new songs. My liking for the songs of Amy Winehouse or of the French songs of Lara Fabian is fairly recent and by constant listening, I have learned to like their songs. All liking is learned. All love for truth or knowledge is learned and a habit. So, also one can learn a lot from nature and from surroundings and from people when they speak. Or we learn from others when they speak in sign or non verbal cues or when they say nothing at all. 

 Paradigms or theories as ways of thinking to inform our world or our projects are also learned. So, how do we learn? Mostly, we observe using our senses. And yes, we must read and cite the sources and credit those who have been there before us. 

 The world is very old and tons of knowledge are ready and very accessible. The technology to access and to share is as instant as fast food. Just as fast food is the ultimate proof of the folly of the fast life, uploading or downloading of so much information per se is not the same as good analysis. It is not always the equivalent of truth. It is not always the wisdom which we all wish to learn. My analogy for this is that it is still the thinking doctor which decides on the diagnosis and prognosis of a case based on the tale of the patient, from the physical examination, from doing the percussion or auscultation & from a battery of tests. It is not the test results or the voluminous data which decides but the person making the analysis. Many students cannot distinguish between compilation of voluminous information from analysis or truth. Here, tools, theories or existing policy instruments may come in handy. Your new analysis could lead to new reformulations and new truths. Such is what we call pushing the frontiers of knowledge. 

 As much as you can, always deliver the message in an elegant language. Of course, the basic infrastructure is correct grammar. Grammar is about the subject and the predicate. A noun is a name word. In today’s tourism and marketing language, we say “branding.” In gender, sexual orientation or race, we say identity. In behavioral psychology, it could be name calling. The predicate is the action word. And a sentence is composed of the subject noun and the predicate verb. It is said that to write we start with writing one true sentence. To be able to express what we mean, we group the sentences into a coherent paragraph. We call this messaging. And, that in a few words is one perspective about what writing is all about.

Dreaming Of A Different Reality

During this season, I have had much time for reflection and much time to myself for as the French would say, “ A life reflected is better than life itself.” I have also been in conversation with all kinds of folks : from our perfumed European guests at my Inn and with ordinary tricycle drivers who frequent our KTV garden hall to celebrate the end of hard day’s work by singing their troubles away. One common topic is the recession or hard times which is so palpably felt by all even if for many of us nothing is changed as we have always been experiencing poverty all this time, anyway. So, I end up regaling my guests with one of my favorite classic tales that I read somewhere & I like to remember when I’m stressed :

A fisherfolk was resting in a hammock under a palm tree and enjoying the
aquamarine view of the ocean & vanilla sky horizon when a Japanese tourist asked
him " WHY dont you catch more fish?
Why? asked the fisherman.
So you can build more boats, said the old Jap
& then what? asked the fisherman?
So you can buy a fleet of fishing boats, answered the Old Jap
& then what? asked the fisherman
So you can go on vacation holiday, like me.
Ah that's what Im doing already, said the fisherman.

A friend of mine has another version of the story: A farmer...taking a siesta under the tree...and world bank consultant comes around..tells him he can work to increase harvest, to earn more, to send children to school, to buy household appliances, to save time, to do the things one wants to do (other than taking a siesta)...

I may be naïve but much of the recession scare is exacerbated by media hype.
One, for example, would immediately connect the Wall Street mayhem to the drop of copra prices in these islands. The drop in copra prices has resulted to cheapened labor as most farm workers get paid in percentage share. So, labor in the rural area is as low as two dollars a day. One need not go to the uplands ( where they are better off because they have subsistence farming) because in our malls, the wage is not enough for roof and board. Needless, to say, many wage earners in malls are women as sales ladies who have to stand the whole day.

What to do in these times? The intuitive answer is to go back to basic production : plant more, produce more ( including producing more new voices from social movements, peoples organizations, organizations with corporate social responsibilities etc. ) Those who can should invest and continue to buy and sell to cushion the slowing down of markets. Development outcomes and social goals have been articulated in many documents such as the Millennium Development Goals and must go hand in hand with good governance and democratic politics. These are big words. So, let me be vernacular about some of my observations of life in these islands. In my island city, there is no decent transportation from the poblacion to the barangays. Transportation is through motorcycles, which according to the Land Transportation Office (LTO), do not conform to the standard specification of a public utility. But, the LTO cannot regulate, accordingly, because the franchising of these motorbikes has been devolved to the local governments. This hazardous transport can also be found not only in Davao City and Samal Island but also in other third world cities like Bangkok. For me, roads and transportations are women’s issues because these are used by all including children and mothers. And, there is something amiss, if only the driver of a motorbike will wear helmets. As we say, if the roads and transport systems are not safe for women and children, then they are not safe at all. One development expert is suggesting that we urge the World Bank to finance gas-powered vehicles to keep our island garden city pristine! Mumbai has very old taxicabs but because they use compact neutral gas (CNG), there is no pollution! Or maybe use electric powered pedicabs? (at least 3 wheeled).

Each of us has a stake in the survival and future of our city. The recession will result in movement of capital from expensive land and labor to cheap land and labor. So, our islands will continue to be the haven of call centers and business processing outsource entities ( BPO ) and retirement communities for expatriates. To the extent that all these will provide jobs are commendable but relocation or displacement and destruction of the environment are potential complications. We have seen how mangroves have been denuded to give way to these kind of development aggression. While sea resorts bring in the almighty dollar, access by the poor to the sea must not be impaired. This is not to say that we should be xenophobic to foreign visitors and residents as we also deploy about 10% of our mature population to almost two hundred countries in the world.

Best For Babies & Pleasant Slowfood

The law on Milk is about the marketing of breastmilk substitutes because it has been scientifically established that breast milk is best for babies. The Milk law is about products not age. There is no age limit as long as breastfeeding persists. But, breastfeeding is easily undermined, if the TV endorsers of milk are big movie stars like Governor Vilma Santos, Lea Salonga or Sharon Cuneta, showing claims that milk is the magic for health and nutrition. Examples of aggressive advertisements that overwhelm us daily on television are Mead Johnson's Panatag 100% by Carmina Villaroel, Claudine Barreto, Jodi Santamaria- Lacson, 7IQ Plus, Ask your doctor, Pursue excellence, brain development with Lea Salonga, Nestle -Sharon and Miel's Look at me Mom, My only Milk, Wyeth Minds in Progress etc. All these TV commercials continue to entice us with new versions.

The Supreme Court in upholding the Implementing Rules & Regulations (IRR) of the Milk Code says that infants & young children must be protected and that as the Department of Health correctly provided in the IRR, the
“ promotion of products…. must be objective and should not equate or make the (milk) product appear to be good or equal to breastmilk or breastfeeding in the advertising concept…. The total effect (of advertising) should not directly or indirectly suggest that buying their product would produce better individuals, or result in greater love, intelligence, ability, harmony or in any manner bring better health to the baby, or other such exaggerated and unsubstantiated claim.’’

The law on milk says that all health and nutrition claims in the marketing of breastmilk substitutes are prohibited. Photos of mothers and children are prohibited. If the Inter Agency Committee, IAC ( headed by the Department of Health ) in charge of implementing the IRR, approved the advertisement, then both the IAC and the milk company need to prove their claims. As mothers promoting breastfeeding, we have learned that breast milk sourced DHA & ARA ( fatty acids) are the ones best for babies. But, the artificial DHA & ARA added to the milk formula that our movie stars are promoting are derived from algae and fungi and therefore, very inferior compared to mothers’ milk. Other countries, like Canada, had disallowed Mead Johnson ( Enfamil + A formula) from claiming that their product promises visual acuity. Accordingly, it was disallowed because it was not backed by scientific evidence, only a study by the formula maker. As we know, scientific evidence must be confirmed by independent research.

Related to promoting breastfeeding is the Slow Food Movement which has for its adage “ a firm defense of quiet pleasure is the only way to oppose the universal folly of fast life.’’ The slow food movement is about how “to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world”

Atty Ipat Luna, President of Tanggol Kalikasan who is promoting the slow food movement says,” the slowfood movement should take a look at how milk is being pushed nowadays. No one thought to ask why Mrs. Obama wanted her spinach creamless and no one connected the dairy assault (Kapanatag, Gov Vilma Santos and 2 glasses of bear brand a day, Look at me Mom, Lea Salonga and Enfakid etc.) to something that is against local, seasonal, sustainable agriculture. Nearly every bankable star in the firmaments of Philippine TV and cinema is now endorsing milk!”

An Island in the Pacific

My domicile is a beautiful island even if I have also built a home in Davao City.
The Island Garden City of Samal in the Philippines is very accessible from mainland Mindanao and I imagine that in the future, if or when we become a federal state, it will be part of the state of Davao.
For now, Samal City is a component city of the province of Davao del Norte. 

There is evidence that Samal Island is very old, even if the island became a city, by law, only in 1998. 
The island used to be composed of two towns (Samal & Babak) then later, a law further subdivided the island into 3 towns with Kaputi-an as another town. 
Which is why, whoever it was who coined the acronym IGACOS to refer to the island garden city is not doing justice by “layering” the very old name Samal which is also the name of the oldest tribe in the island.

Recently, I was speaker in one of the alumni homecomings in the island and I talked about the concept of pride of place to inspire my friends.
Under the light of a full moon, I told my audience that when I wanted to feel rich, I tell myself that I own the skies, sun, sand, seas and the mountains.
I go out of my way to meditate in one of the island’s highest point overlooking the entire Davao Gulf. But, that, also in these flat economic times, it is very easy to have fun and make money at the same time.
In this month of May, the month of flowers, I planted hundreds of various kinds of Hibiscus or locally known as Gumamela and they are ready for sale when they bloom in August, the month of the celebration of harvests in Samal City.

Also, prime time television put Samal Island again in nationwide consciousness when TV sportscaster Dyann Castillejo featured the beautiful Hagimit Falls and beaches and resort facilities.
The source of the falls is a rainfed deeply indented cavernous land formation and the water passes through a seemingly underground unexplored river that surfaces as a waterfall along its way to lower ground.
The land use plan of the island allocates only about 8.5 per cent of its total lands to forest land use. So, if the island values its water system as a potential investment, it must reconsider its large agricultural land use ( 82.5%) and convert it to agroforestry land use in order to increase the island’s forest cover and thus preserve its rivers, lakes and waterfalls.
These inland attractions complement the island’s pristine beaches.
The advantage of Samal compared to Boracay is that it is very near an international airport and as well, the island hopes not to repeat the mistakes of congested Boracay.

The island is teeming with peoples organization: about 60 organizations in an island with a population of more than 82,000 in 46 barangays.
The women in 46 barangays are members of a citywide council of women. In this sense, the social capital to campaign for free and honest elections in the island has always been promising.

Samal City has a women’s center partly built through with funds under the initiative of our political party Abanse! Pinay under the countrywide development funds program.
The focus of the women’s center is economic enterprise and is a rallying point of the members of the Women’s Council of Women.
But, there are also some cases of violence committed against some of the women in the island and Samal City, for now, has had to bring one of these cases to Davao City’s DSWD ( Dept of Social Welfare & Development) facility because the island city does not yet have a shelter for battered women.