Book on BARMM Women's Ordeals in Armed Conflicts Launched

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Stakeholders launched on Tuesday, June 30, the Bangsamoro Herstory book, not for sale and has narratives about the ordeals of women from the Muslim, Christian and non-Moro indigenous communities during armed conflicts in the Bangsamoro region in years past. The Bangsamoro Herstory, authored collaboratively by officials of the Mindanao State University-Maguindanao with the help of contributors, among them women who had suffered from the consequences of armed conflicts, was published with the help of the United Nations Development Programme and the government of the United Kingdom. The book, which has 220 pages, was officially launched on Tuesday afternoon at the campus of MSU-Maguindanao in Datu Odin Sinsuat town in Maguindanao del Norte, an event led by the university’s chancellor, Bai Hejira Nefertiti Limbona, peace advocates and the women whose saddening experiences were mentioned in its chapters. “To all who helped us have this book, we are grateful,” Limbona said. Maguindanao del Norte, home to culturally pluralistic communities, is one of the five provinces in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. Most of the 12 towns in Maguindanao del Norte were hotbeds of secessionist activities of the Moro National Liberation Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front from the 1970s until a few years prior to the creation of BARMM in 2019. The MNLF forged a final peace accord with the national government on September 2, 1996. The MILF and the national government together crafted in 2014 the Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro, which paved the way for the creation in 2019 of BARMM, replacing the then 27-year-old less empowered, now defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. Both erstwhile rebel fronts have representatives in BARMM’s 80-seat regional parliament. Limbona and her subordinates in the MSU-Maguindanao are staunch supporters of peacebuilding and women-empowerment programs in provinces and cities in BARMM. The drafting of the Bangsamoro Herstory by officials of the MSU-Maguindanao, among them the associate professor Grant Warren Lu, and a team from its Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Sustainable Global Engagements, lasted for months, according to Ms. Limbona. The chairman of the MNLF’s central committee, Muslimin Sema, presently functioning as BARMM's labor and employment minister, said they appreciate the MSU-Maguindanao administration's having published the Bangsamoro Herstory. “It will help readers realize that women are so vulnerable to the adverse effects of armed conflicts. Women have a vital, indispensable role in sustaining peace in the autonomous region. Children get first lessons on `peace education’ from their mothers," Sema, a former MNLF combatant, said. Among the dignitaries present during Tuesday’s launching of the Bangsamoro Herstory is a senior staff member of the UNDP in Mindanao, Winston Aylmer Camariñas, who hails from Mlang town in Cotabato and had experienced getting unduly trapped in armed conflicts too. The MSU-Maguindanao has a Diploma in Women, Peace and Security postgraduate program, the first of its kind in Asia and has lessons aiming to maximize women’s participation in peace and security efforts in the local communities.