I will begin by telling of the militarization that took place in a mountain village in the north of the Philippines. I will tell you the story of Marag Valley.

Marag Valley is blessed with rich natural resources, including rain forests, surrounding mountains, fertile land and rivers. Indigenous tribes live here. Their ancestors are buried there. Marag Valley is their home.

The rich natural resources of Marag Valley attracted speculators, government and military men. The residents of Marag continuously resisted the attempts of outsiders to exploit their rich natural resources and grab their ancestral lands. Because of their militant resistance, it was not long before several of their men folk joined the New People's Army in order to better protect their land from the exploiters.

It was then that the Philippine military forces came in and militarized their area. The military began arresting, torturing and killing the residents to force them to confess to being members of the NPA, or to tell who or where the NPA were. Children were not spared from being killed or tortured.

When this failed, full scale military operations began. Bombs and mortar fire rained on the villagers. In order to survive, the indigenous folk sought shelter in the nearby caves. Women bit on pieces of wood to withstand the effects of the bombs. Their ears bled. Children died. Their crops were burned and ruined. Their animals killed. And they had barely anything to eat.

Eventually word leaked out what was happening in Marag Valley. Human rights organizations came bringing food and medicines. They had to come in small boats through the river in order to reach the beleaguered people. And when they did arrive, the military tried to stop them and force them back. The human rights workers had to argue long and hard and demand that they be allowed to bring humanitarian aid to the people before they were eventually allowed to do so.

When the bombings finally stopped, and the military installed their military camps and checkpoints, women of Marag Valley were forced to become mistresses to the solders.

The Philippine government promised to implement projects in Marag Valley, to rebuild it, so that residents would learn to trust them again, instead of trusting the NPA. But real help never came. Land-grabbing, harassment and illegal logging by land speculators continued, and promises of building better roads and infrastructures were not fulfilled. Today, the scars of the war on the people of Marag Valley have not yet healed.

 

Militarization on Marag Valley happened 20 years ago & way before the so-called War on Terror was launched by the US imperialists after 9/11. And Marag Valley is not a unique story. Stories like this are replicated all over the world, where people's resistance is most organized. Militarization is used to force resisting people to submission through fear.

Political repression is the first step to militarization. Arrests, torture, disappearances, summary executions increase and intensify as the people step up their resistance. Then the saturation of military troops, checkpoints and para military forces in the area. And then the bombings.

Residents flee their homes. For example, because of the counter insurgency programs of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, which she calls Operation Freedom Watch, more than two million people have been forcibly displaced in the island of Mindanao alone.

What is the impact of militarization on women?

Women are perceived to be more vulnerable than men. The weaker sex. Children are helpless. They cannot fight back. They suffer the most abuses and human rights violations during militarization.

When villages are bombed, or when soldiers swarm a village, homes are robbed and destroyed. Crops are destroyed and villagers are prevented from working their land and thus are left with little or no food. When the militarization is so intense, the villagers are forced to leave their homes and look for safer places to live in.

With militarization, hunger, disease and epidemics are usual occurrences. Evacuation centers are often congested and lack the necessary sanitary facilities. Often pregnant women suffer miscarriage or give birth prematurely. Children and the elderly contract diseases and many of them die.

Women also suffer from sexual abuse. As I mentioned above, when the military took over Marag Valley, they took the women as their mistresses.

When women are arrested, they face the danger of being sexually molested or raped. Rape through the ages, has been used as a means to terrorize entire communities. It was only in 1996 that the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague defined rape as a war crime and a crime against humanity. This was the United Nations tribunal against eight Serbian military and police officers.

Previously, though rape charges were included in other cases against military men, it was treated as secondary, and tolerated as part of soldiers' abusive behavior. Even the Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, which judged Nazi crimes after World War II, made no reference to rape in its charter.

Rape and other sexual abuses that women suffer because of militarization, increase their vulnerability to communicable and sexually transmitted diseases, particularly HIV and AIDS.

Long term military presence in an area also gives rise to prostitution, which again gives rise to increased sexually transmitted diseases.

Women's reproductive health is seriously damaged by the bombing, firing of weapons and other pollutants introduced into the environment through military activity, causing cancers in women and severe birth defects in infants born in such areas.

There is also the psychological and emotional trauma suffered by women and children to long term military presence.

There are many other effects of militarization on women and children. I shall not go into them, but just mention them:

• loss of home, crops, animals for entire communities

• among indigenous peoples, displacement means loss of cultural identities and the destruction of their close relationship with the land

• loss of education. Children cannot go to school

• emotional and psychological effects of militarization

• increased poverty

Militarization has also brought out the militant side of women. The determination to fight back. To organize themselves, or join organizations that are fighting for their rights.

Take the example of Linda Cadapan, mother of Shirley Cadapan, a student who together with another student, Karen Empeno were arrested and now disappeared. Mrs. Cadapan is now very active in campaigns activities to surface her daughter, Karen, and all the disappeared. She is now the spokesperson of Desaparecidos, an organization of relatives of the disappeared in the Philippines.

The mothers and daughters of other disappeared in the Philippines have also become very active, like Mrs. Edith Burgos, Lorena Santos and Maywan Dominado, to name a few.

There have been others who joined the armed resistance of the people.

Whatever way or path they take, they overcome their fears and turn their energies into joining the struggle for justice and freedom.

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