“With the peace initiatives of the government with the CPLA-CBA and with the CPP-NPA-NDF, creating mechanisms for transitional justice and reconciliation on the Cordillera issue following the long-established indigenous mechanisms and processes might lay the foundation for long term peace.”

On the occasion of the Signing of the GPH-CBA/CPLA Closure Agreement in 2011, the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (PAPP) stated:

“The CPLA has asked that we allow and support them in writing their story so that their history will not be forgotten, so that their role will not disappear from the landscape of the Cordillera. Government is happy to accede and we applaud this as a wonderful element in this closure process.”

Though there was aspiration in connection with legacy documentation, there seems to be silence as regards documenting and addressing atrocity crimes. Even more so, not much attention has been given to women’s narratives or their struggles to live through the narratives of violence. There are stories of both agency and victimization but they have not been fully documented in light of transitional justice. For example, not much has been written about what their stories were in relation to combatting development aggression in the 70s or to the split of Fr. Conrado Balweg’s group with the communist insurgents. What was their meta-narrative as Cordillera women? And in the context of advancing autonomy in the Cordillera, what is the significance of gender and transitional justice?

This proposed project intends to bring forth specifically the memory of women from the south (BARMM and selected non-BARMM areas) and the north (CAR) in connection with their lived narratives before, during, and after Martial Law in the Philippines. It shall look at both types of memory: (1) imaginative or representational memory that dwells into individual memory of war, violence, and oppression (trials and tribulations); and (2) embodied/repetitive or incorporated memory that focus on lived practices that emancipate from painful past (grief and mourning, adaptations, and coping). In other words, as women shall invited to share their memory of their past and how they have dealt with it. In the process, the key principle is that these women are co-creators of knowledge.

The narrative-knowledge of these women shall be documented in research and policy briefs that are meant to guide gender-sensitive transitional justice policy formulation and programmatic development. Additionally, they will frame common ground between women from the north and south to come together and collectively build their own network to advocate for transitional justice mechanisms. Furthermore, narrative-knowledge shall inform the creation of visual artefacts that can be used as advocacy materials for transitional justice. And finally, the documented knowledge-narrative seeks to contribute to developing a capacity development program for institutional implementers to further assist them in crafting appropriate gender-sensitive transitional justice interventions.

These endeavors are guided by the commitment to contribute to the substantiation of the NAP WPS 2017-2022 Action Point specific to transitional justice.

The Department of Political Science of the Ateneo de Manila University conducted studies and developed programs on women/gender, particularly, on issues related to peace and security, natural disasters, and gender-based violence in emergencies.

For example, in 2015, through the support from the Royal Norwegian Embassy (RNE) and with cooperation from the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP), the Department organized an Executive Course on Women, Peace and Security. The purpose of this activity was to strengthen the capacity of national government agency (NGA) and Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) implementors of the NAP WPS 2010-2016. The following year, as per request of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) and with support from the Regional EU-ASEAN Dialogue Instruments (READI) Human Rights Facility, the Department conducted a 10-Southeast Asian Country thematic study on Women in Natural Disaster: Indicative Findings in Unravelling Gender in Institutional Responses. The study was published in 2018. 

In 2018 and 2019, with support from and in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the Department organized Executive Certificate Course on Gender-based Violence in Emergencies. This graduate level certificate course intended to capacitate crisis (i.e. natural and human-made disasters) frontliners/first responders on gender-informed policy making, program formulation, and field operations to combat gender-based violence.

Last year, the Department proposal on “Mourning and Its Imperatives” was selected as one of the Areté Sandbox Residency grantees. This project sought to examine the different ways different vulnerable communities deal with the shock of violence—whether it had led to death and other kinds of loss, or rendered lives severely compromised by the passage—to gather insight into the victims’ relative ability to muster the power to liberate themselves from their experience. “Mourning and its Imperatives” was structured as a data-gathering project, to systematically inquire into individual and community experience,

decision, and resolutions in relation to the burdens of this kind of victimization. It was also designed as an opportunity to conceptualize memorialization scenarios that may be explored with victim communities.

The proposed project intends to build on this on-going work of the Areté Sandbox Residency Project but aims to expand it beyond memorialization initiatives. The Areté Sandbox Project took its initial step towards connecting with Malisbong community members during their Massacre Memorialization in September 2019. During this time, one of the project’s team members --- Ms. Marian Pastor Roces --- informally conversed with community members and took photo documentation of the activity. Second engagement by the project proponent would have been with Malisbong women during their Women’s Summit on 13 March 2020 but unfortunately, the event was cancelled because of the covid-19 concern. The project is supposed to pick-up by August 2020 or when quarantine protocols allow for field engagement.

Finally, the Department of Political Science houses the Gender and Atrocity Prevention Program of the Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (APR2P) and chairs the Gender and Atrocity Prevention Working Group of the Asia Pacific Partnership on Atrocity Prevention (APPAP). Part of its work is advancing gender and transitional justice from the lens of Women, Peace and Security in general and atrocity prevention, in particular.

Taken together, these aforementioned projects are indicative of the Department’s advocacies on women’s human rights, peacebuilding, addressing gender-based violence, and transitional justice. It is from these advocacies that the Department intends to advance the proposed Surfacing Narratives Towards Transitional Justice in the North and South: Weaving Women’s Voices – A Memory Project in Aid of Developing Transitional Justice Interventions. Furthermore, there is a commitment to conduct research, knowledge sharing, create spaces for articulation, and capacitation of relevant actors in aid of building transitional justice initiatives for women within the framework of NAP WPS 2017-2022 as an umbrella policy.

Documentation is integral to human rights and transitional justice work. They serve as concrete evidence of a past gone by and when animated into forms of expression (whether in the visual or performing arts), urges people to remember. But oral testimonies alone are not sufficient to push for critical actions. They need to be supported and nurtured by other strategies to ensure that narratives are treated as living documents in the pursuit of transitional justice.

The identification of this issue area came from past observations of the project proponent with regard to the lack of systematically documented narratives as well as creative forms that can articulate them. For example, in 2013, the proponent was requested by Sulong CARHRIHL to conduct a research on women in armed conflict. Field research areas included both CAR and the ARMM. Methodologically, the research

involved narrative documentation specific to women's stories of victimization and agency. Select narratives from this research was published in 2015. 

In 2015, the project proponent took on the role of consultant to OPAPP on the implementation of the 2010-2016 NAP WPS. Part of assessing the implementation of the NAP WPS was the conduct of Listening Sessions with women who have been beneficiaries of peace agreements, namely, women integrees in 5 Infantry Division (5ID) under the Closure Agreement with the CBA-CPLA. Narratives of these women, specifically, their aspirations were documented. Research findings were published in “The National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security: The Philippine Experience.”

Reviewing the “TJRC Listening Process Report” also highlights the importance of documenting narratives.

“Its [TJRC] Listening Process strategy operationalized the ‘victim-centered’ approach where collective stories from 210 conflict-affected communities in Mindanao were heard. Around 40% of those who participated in the Listening Process were women.”

As the TJRC Listening Process Report is a publicly accessible document, it serves as one documentary basis for culling out narratives collected during their Listening Process sessions with women. In fact, one of the key observations of the project proponent when she served as the Senior Gender Advisor for the TJRC was the importance of highlighting women’s narratives in the construction of the Bangsamoro narrative on legitimate grievance, historical injustice, human rights violations, and marginalization through land dispossession. During that time, she believed the salience of these narratives in building not only the ‘truth-scape’ for transitional justice but also in constructing the discourse of healing and reconciliation in the Bangsamoro. This notion was reaffirmed during the conduct of gender and transitional justice orientation for community women participants in the TJRC Listening Process where she also observed that the women themselves have tended to express the need to document narratives as part of their own healing journey.

During an activity of IWG TJDwP last year, the project proponent observed that story telling was a means for women to express their aspirations, particularly, in light of thinking about transitional justice initiatives. In an IWG TJDwP listening session conducted in Manili, the predominant narrative had been on the massacre that was committed on 19 June 1971. However, there was an account specific to SGBAC.

“The 69^th body was that of Sittie Makakena, a fair-looking young lady. Her body that sustained multiple knife-stabs was found inside a house without clothes, and believed to have been raped.”

In general terms, such account would not have been known had it not been told. It would not be relevant if not included in a process of systematic documentation. But as things stand right now, not too many narratives of similar nature have been documented.

The TJRC and IWG TJDwP may have just barely scratched the surface of similar narratives. According to data from the Human Rights Victims Claims Board (HRVCB), of the 11,103 claims awarded reparation, 238 (2.1%) were victims of ‘rape and torture with permanent damage’. However, it is not known how many of these were from the Bangsamoro or the Cordillera; it is also not known what this number is vis a vis the claims filed under the same category. There is thus a question on data that can only be addressed with further documentation.

In connection with the NAP WPS 2017-2022, observations of the project proponent when she served as Consultant for OPAPP on NAP WPS 2017-2022 included recognizing the gap on the implementation of the NAP in connection with transitional justice. 

The Action Point on transitional justice under the substantive pillar on Protection and Prevention where the over-all strategy is the “[i]ntegration of NAP WPS in the framework of disaster and risk reduction and management, particularly, in conflict-affected/prone areas and development of a comprehensive gender and culturally-sensitive inter-agency humanitarian protection and rehabilitation program that specifically highlights the context of various conflict situations and the vulnerabilities of women.” As stated in Action Point 8 “[w]omen and girls who were victims of conflict-related (i.e. vertical and horizontal) violence have access to legal remedies, including transitional and restorative justice.” 

Sub-Action Point 8.3 stated that there should be the “inclusion of gender and transitional justice in negotiated peace agreements as well as in mechanisms relevant to the implementation of closure agreements.” This is particularly relevant in the work of all peace tables in the country. Specific to the Bangsamoro, sub-Action Point 8.4 mentioned the “[i]mplementation the gender-specific recommendations of the Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) on the Bangsamoro, particularly, those related to emblematic mass atrocity.” As per observation of the project proponent, development of gender-sensitive transitional justice mechanisms will not be ensured unless they are explicitly prioritized in on-going processes of the GPH PIP, ICCMN, and CBA-CPLA Closure Agreement JEMC. On two occasions, the project proponent was invited by OPAPP to deliver lectures on gender and transitional justice --- first was in September 2018 for the newly created inter-agency TWG on transitional justice; and second in October 2018 for the Armed Forces of the Philippines Peace and Development Office (AFP PDO). These were initial efforts to mainstream gender in transitional justice work.

Earlier in 2018, members of the NSC WPS were directed to make their respective Agency Action Plans on Women, Peace and Security (ASAP WPS). In this regard, each implementing agency, based on their respective mandates, were to draw up projects, activities, and programs (PAPs) on women, peace and security. As recalled by the project proponent, there were several agencies that included plans for Action

Point 8 on transitional justice; however, only one had plans in light of sub-Action Point 8.4. In retrospect, the project proponent interpreted this as a possible indication of the lack of awareness among NSC WPS on the relevance of transitional justice in the implementation of women, peace and security initiatives. This could have been most likely the case since the priority of NAP WPS implementation during that time was in response of Marawi Siege. In moving forward, therefore, there is a need for awareness raising and capacitation of NSC WPS members to consciously include transitional justice in their implementation of the NAP WPS 2017-2022.

As previously mentioned, the proposed project builds on initial initiatives of the “Mourning and Its Imperative” Areté Sandbox Residency Project where, in cooperation with the IWG TJDwP, an initial conversation with women from Malisbong, Palimbang, Sultan Kudarat was conducted. It was during this conversation that women spoke about their experiences but could not openly talk about gender-based atrocities. This was not surprising. However, the mere fact that there were anecdotal stories of alleged sexual violence crimes exist, one cannot simply drop the possibility that there are still narratives out there. The task then is to find them.

There is a strong chance that the Malisbong women would be able to champion the initiative of memory project. For one, they have organized themselves into the Social Worker and Coordinating Council (SWCC) and have been quite vocal with regard to the issue of reparation; they have also been very active in exploring memorialization activities in connection with the 1974 Malisbong Massacre. In fact, it is highly likely that these women may be able to counter narratives that question the very existence of a violent past because they have lived through it, triumphed over it, and continues the struggle to have their collective experiences recognized.

For women from Buscalan and Tabuk, Kalinga this project will provide the opportunity to re-connect. The previous engagement on narrative collection conducted by the project proponent transpired in 2013 under the commissioned research by Sulong CARHRIHL. During that time, the research intended to simply document women’s lives in the context of victimization, participation, and peace agency as well as record their self-identified needs. For women respondents from Buscalan and Tabuk, the identified need was to undergo life trauma healing. 

In the case of women from Manili, Lake Sebu and Jolo, the basis for area identification has to do with accessible data from the TJRC reports and insights from other TJRC processes. More recently, observations from IWG TJDwP Listening Sessions in Jolo confirmed the need to hear from more women.

The identified problem is the lack of redress for women victims/survivors of gender-based atrocity crimes before, during, and after Martial Law. One of the reasons for this is the lack or even absence of systematic documentation of these crimes.

In the Report of the TJRC on the Bangsamoro, there were several patterns of human rights violations against women were uncovered:

• Rape, mutilation (specifically of women victims’ reproductive organs) and killing
• Abduction, sexual abuse and enforced disappearance
• Sexual slavery
• Forced marriage and abandonment

The widespread and systematic sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) committed against women were mass atrocity crimes that merited further examination on whether they were used as a ‘tactic/weapon’ of war. On this point, recognition of such crimes was included in the statutes and jurisprudence of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) as well as in the judgments passed by the Special War Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh and the Justice and Peace Chamber of the Bogota High Tribunal in Colombia. In light of these recognitions, human rights violations of women may be recognized as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes constitutive of ‘ethnic cleansing.’ Although statutory recognition may not be applicable to Bangsamoro and non-Bangsamoro women victimized during Martial Law, the legal discourse nonetheless provide a strong case for arguing the severity of these crimes.

In the case of the Cordilleras, the absence of narratives of gender-based atrocity crimes against women does not mean that these acts of violence did not take place. They do exist, in all likelihood --- but no documentation has been done yet to establish this.

Since the identified problem is lack of redress for women victims/survivors of gender-based atrocity crimes before, during, and after Martial Law, the proposed solution is to contribute to the process of developing appropriate transitional justice mechanisms. Towards this end, the strategy is to systematically document these lived narratives and based on them, create specific products (i.e. research and policy briefs, network of women victims/survivors, visual artefacts, and capacity development program) that can inform the development of gender-sensitive transitional justice interventions.

Based on the pillars of transitional justice, the contributing elements to the proposed solution are:

• Highlight women’s agency in documented narratives (right to truth pillar). 

• Build solidarity between women from the north (Cordillera Administrative Region) and south (Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and selected non-BARMM areas) as regards their embodied narratives and aspirations (right to justice pillar). 

• Public reckoning of gender-based atrocities against women and generating critical conversations on appropriate transitional justice measures (right to reparation pillar). 

• Strengthen capacities of target institutions to deliver gender-sensitive transitional justice programs (guarantee of non-recurrence pillar). 
  

• GENERAL OBJECTIVE (GO):
  

To contribute to developing strategies for redress for women victims/survivors of gender-based atrocity crimes before, during, and after Martial Law.

• SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE (SO):
  

To establish a memory documentation in aid of developing various gender-sensitive transitional justice initiatives.

• OUTCOMES, OUTPUTS OR DELIVERABLES (R):
  

Outcome/Result 1. Highlight women’s agency in documented narratives (narrative documentation and the right to truth)

Collected narratives shall be divided into (1) imaginative or representational memory that dwells into individual memory of war, violence, and oppression (trials and tribulations) and (2) embodied/repetitive or incorporated memory that focus on lived practices that emancipate from painful past (grief and mourning, adaptations, and coping). This essentially means that women’s narratives shall be framed into memory of their past and how they have dealt with it. The underlying intent therefore is to demonstrate women as co-creators of knowledge in advancing their own right to truth.

Output 1. Developed Scoping/Mapping Research to guide conduct of field research missions.

Output 2. Created systematic documentation and archiving of women’s narratives on gender-based atrocity crimes and aspirations for redress (a recording and photographic archive).

Output 3. Publication of research and policy briefs on women, gender-based atrocities, and transitional justice in aid of legislation and institutional programmatic development.

Outcome/Result 2. Provided space to build initial solidarity between women from the north (Cordillera Administrative Region) and the south (Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and selected non-BARMM areas) (solidarity-building and the right to justice).

The Women’s Summit on Transitional Justice shall be an opportunity for women participants in the project to come together, share their experiences with each other, and collectively discuss and decide on their ‘ways forward’ that shall embodied in a Summit Declaration and/or Action Plan.

Integral to this summit process is the women’s familiarization with various judicial and non-judicial mechanisms where they can pursue and exercise their right to justice. One such possibility is to initiate the establishment of a Women’s Tribunal on Gender and Transitional Justice by the women themselves as based from narratives collected from them.

Output 4. Convened Women’s Summit on Transitional Justice Declaration and/or Action Plans drafted to guide solidarity initiatives.

Outcome/Result 3. Public reckoning of gender-based atrocities against women and enticing critical conversations on appropriate transitional justice measures (knowledge-sharing, public information and the right to reparation). 

Narrative truth is personal truth related to personal memory and recollection. It is subjective and victim-centered in its most genuine form. These narratives will form the backbone and detail of auditory and visual artistic work intended for broad public circulation. The viewing public becomes, in turn, ‘accountive’ story tellers, that is, those that “make concrete observations about an artwork that contributes to a narrative.” Without instrumentalizing art and therefore allowing artmaking’s contemporary techniques to generate public empathy, the curatorial design of exhibitions and publications can be based on full understanding of the ethics and politics of representation. Transitional justice advocacy, as a result of public empathy, is only one ideal consequence. Initiatives toward symbolic representation is another. Further possibilities are not foreclosed. 

Output 5. Developed materials for the curation and implementation of on-site and online exhibitions to create an empathetic public to advocacy.

Outcome/Result 4. Strengthened capacities of target implementing agencies and civil society organization to deliver gender-sensitive transitional justice programs in relation to the implementation of the NAP WPS 2017-2022 (training and the guarantee of non-recurrence).

A unique feature of the proposed project is the linkage between gender, transitional justice and atrocity prevention. According to the Joint Study of the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non-Recurrence and the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, “while transitional justice should not be conceived primarily as a ‘peace-making’ instrument, numerous indicators demonstrate that it can contribute to sustainable peace and security by helping to break cycles of violence and atrocities, delivering a sense of justice to victims, and prompting examinations of deficiencies in State institutions that may have enabled, if not promoted, those cycles.” Implementing government agencies --- including OPAPP, GPH PIP TWG, ICCMN for the Bangsamoro, and the JEMC of the CBA-CPLA Closure Agreement, and NSC WPS --- stand to benefit from a training program that blends their commitments to gender, transitional justice, and advancing sustainable peace through the prevention of violence within the policy frame of the NAP WPS 2017-2022.

Output 6. Development of a professional course on Gender, Transitional Justice and Atrocity Prevention, supported by systematized audio-visual material