The Senate of the Philippines passed unanimously the “Girls Not Brides Act” or Senate Bill No. 1371, after the third reading.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros, who chairs the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality, filed the bill in March 2020.

Quoting data from the United Children’s Fund (Unicef), Hontiveros said on her Twitter account “the Philippines is the top 12th country in terms of the number of child brides. A shocking 726,000 of our girls have been contracted into marriages they never asked for.”

The bill states that “anyone who arranges, facilitates, or officiates child marriages” will serve a prison sentence of up to 12 years and has to pay a fine of P50,000. Violators also will be held liable under Republic Act No. 7610, or the Special Protection of Children Against Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act.

“It is our duty to protect them. Our girls now and tomorrow deserve better,” Hontiveros said.

Partner-LGUs of the Zuellig Family Foundation (ZFF) in Mindanao, undergoing Youth and Leadership Governance Program (YLGP), have introduced or drafted ordinances prohibiting child and forced marriages. Five municipalities in Region 12 and five in Lanao del Sur started the program in 2019, with Module 1 launched in August 2019 in Sarangani and Sultan Kudarat.

YLGP Sarangani-Sultan Kudarat has a municipal ordinance (Malungon, Sarangani) on anti-child and forced marriage. Columbio (Sultan Kudarat) and Malapatan and Maitum (Sarangani) followed Malungon’s lead and are currently drafting a similar ordinance. Kalamansig, also in Sultan Kudarat, plans to draft the same ordinance.

ZFF’s YLGP, in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund, is a five-year leadership capacity-building initiative that engages members of Sangguniang Kabataan. Their participation in the Bridging Leadership aims to build their competencies to boost their local government’s adolescent sexual reproductive health (ASRH) program, which is hoped to reduce teenage pregnancy. Participants are expected to take part in their local government’s efforts to improve ASRH programs and policies that are inclusive and responsive to the needs of the youth.

Willpower, meticulousness, strategic thinking, and community building come naturally to women. These qualities have not only endeared Mayor Nashiba Gandamra-Sumagayan to her constituents but also helped bring progress to Taraka in Lanao del Sur.

The proof of her hard work is the conferment of the 2020 Civil Service Commission Pagasa Award (Regional Winner for the Honors Program) for outstanding governance.

Sumagayan was credited for turning a fourth-class municipality into a progressive community. She has maintained the peace and order vital to the progress of every locality.

The mayor acknowledges her predecessor and husband, Amenodin, for initiating vital changes when he was the mayor. Amenodin settled long-standing family feuds which had intimidated the community. More police officers patrolled the neighborhoods, curbing crime and drug-related activities.

“Peace and order has always been our top priority. Our collective efforts have led to the various accomplishments of our security forces,” she says.

The Taraka-MPS (Metropolitan Police Service) was conferred the Medalya ng Papuri for arresting the top three most wanted suspects.

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Spending on infrastructure was likewise a priority. With the help of government organizations, farm-to-market roads, multi-purpose buildings, water systems, RHU (rural health unit) buildings, and a Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, among other structures, were built. The municipal hall was also expanded and the municipal gymnasium renovated.

The mayor enhanced the social services such as continuing education programs amid the pandemic. Every month, Sumagayan would meet with the local school board to discuss how the learners were faring and how the local government could improve the educational system. As a result, her LGU merited the Seal of Good Education Governance in 2019 from the Synergeia Foundation, a league of organizations espousing quality education, and the United States Agency for International Development.

Before she entered politics, Sumagayan was assistant professor in English and literature at the Mindanao State University. “I invested time in my work so that I would be able to equip my students with the essential skills needed to reach their goals,” she enthuses.

She admits her biggest challenge then was balancing her role as teacher, mother, and wife to her husband who was then Mayor and was girding for the bar exams. She did not allow the pressures of family life affect her work. Even if she felt under the weather, she continued to teach with enthusiasm.

Further, Sumagayan has made health services more accessible to her constituents. The RHU provides newborn screening kits, incentives for tuberculosis-cured children, and hygiene kits.

Dr. Bolawan Delawi, RHU head, and the Zuellig Family Foundation have implemented various health programs. With the police and other departments, Sumagayan has been conducting an awareness campaign on smoke-related health problems. The LGU has since been placed in the Hall of Fame of the Red Orchid Awards, the Department of Health’s incentive for tobacco-free environments.

Taraka has managed to control the COVID-19 pandemic through the Sangguniang Bayan, headed by Vice Mayor Amenodin Sumagayan.

Through a series of house-to-house relief operations, Sangguniang Bayan distributed hygiene kits and horticulture crops, and procured health materials for disinfection. Frontliners were given personal protective equipment and free meals. When the lockdowns put the livelihood of daily-wage earners on hold, the mayor provided cash assistance.

Sumagayan points out that her greatest achievement has been to empower her associates and her constituents by making them believe in their potential. Throughout her term, Taraka has received the seals from the Department of the Interior and Local Government for good governance, most gender responsive municipality, good financial housekeeping, disaster preparedness, business friendliness, and peace and order.

This year, Sumagayan plans to establish an agricultural and livelihood program with the vision of making Taraka an economic hub. She hopes to implement Mindanao Development Authority chairperson Emmanuel Piñol’s solar-powered irrigation system, an anti-poverty program that aims to provide water and improve crop production in isolated provinces.

“This will not only help our farmers but also our constituents who do not have enough to support themselves. We will be able to establish a local enterprise where everyone will benefit most especially our vulnerable sectors,” she says.

Aside from improvements in her municipality, her collaborative leadership style has also brought Muslim women to the forefront. “Muslim women leaders across the globe are proving that their biological makeup and their social stereotypes do not reflect their potential,” she emphasizes.

“Muslim women are independent and spiritual individuals in their own right. They are firm in their resolve and inclined to lead against odds. Despite living in patriarchal societies, they stand on their ground and let their voices be heard. They speak for other people and show immense compassion towards their communities. This is what fuels them to brave every challenge that comes their way. This is what makes Muslim women leaders special.

(This story was published in the Manila Standard on Jan. 6, 2021)

Located at the southern tip of Bataan Province, Mariveles is home to the Freeport Area of Bataan (FAB). In 2018, it was the second richest municipality in the Philippines, according to a Commission on the Audit report. Job-seekers from other provinces flock to the area.

A fifth of Bataan’s population lives in Mariveles, making it the most populous of the province’s 11 municipalities and one city. Yet health services for its residents used to be limited to those provided by the rural health unit, barangay health stations, private clinics, and the Mariveles Mental Health Hospital. The nearest hospital was over an hour’s drive away in Balanga City.

Ria (name withheld upon request), a long-time Mariveles resident and whose husband works in a FAB locator, recalls how she had to fight for space in a packed bus to get to the Bataan General Hospital and Medical Center (BGHMC) in Balanga City, where she gave birth to her first-born in 2019. Each two-way trip that included tricycle rides would cost her almost P200, which for Ria was “too much, especially since we’re on a tight budget.”

White elephant to white knight

Governor Albert Garcia acknowledged the deficiency, saying in a February 2018 interview with ZFF, “There are RHUs (rural health units), lying-in clinics but no hospital so when an accident occurs, they still need to bring the victim to Balanga. Plus, the Freeport is there, the workers, the population, so it needs a functioning hospital,” then he added, “That is why by hook or by crook this year (2018), the hospital will open” referring to the then-unused hospital, which had its roots to the vision of the governor’s late father.

As a congressman in 2011, Enrique Garcia introduced a bill to build a Mariveles hospital, which led to remodeling and then a retrofitting in 2017 of an existing building that stood idle since, earning it the monicker Mariveles Display Hospital.

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But the Mariveles District Hospital (MDH) would finally open in September 2018. It rendered out-patient and emergency services. And once it opened, its progress was fast.

In August 2019, it was licensed to operate as an infirmary. In March 2020, it was upgraded to a licensed Level 1 hospital just two weeks after it was designated a COVID-19 referral hospital.

It has discharged the province’s youngest COVID-19 patient (3 years old) and the oldest couple (80 years old).

Tracing infected and looking after their welfare

Ria was among MDH’s COVID-19 patients. She was exposed to a friend who had the virus. She was immediately tracked, tested in the RHU, and picked by MDH personnel after results showed she was positive. At the MDH emergency room, hospital personnel explained the tests and treatment she would be undergoing. For Ria, everything happened quickly, efficiently.

Thanks to ZFF’s interventions, the provincial government had the proper protocols in place.

“Our added knowledge because of our partnership helped us to cope better with the pandemic,” Garcia said during the governors’ learning forum last June 30.

For Ria, the two-week hospital stay was made easier by the health workers.

“I gained another family there,” said Ria, who praised her doctors and nurses for their patience, courtesy, and genuine service. “You can feel they were there to serve and not merely work.”

From her first day until her discharge, Ria did not have to shell out money. “I had my medicines. I was fed on time. They gave me masks and soap for handwashing. Upon my discharge, I did not have to pay for anything. Plus, when I was discharged, they gave me a set of easy-to-understand tips to avoid COVID-19.”

Fortunately, too for Ria, she did not suffer any discrimination when she returned home. The same cannot be said of MDH health staff, who were not welcome in their neighborhoods. So the Mariveles government and community responded. The local government opened a dormitory for the staff. Community members gave them meals and comfort food like milk tea. A FAB locator manufactured face masks for the health front-liners.

Service delivery network

Thankfully, too, its health service delivery network (SDN) has finally improved. MDH chief Dr. Hector Santos, who also oversees the Orani District Hospital, said the functional SDN has made it easier to refer and track all patients and not just those with COVID-19.

Governor Garcia said likewise, “There is that highly elusive service delivery network during normal times when it was a challenge for all LGUs to cooperate toward an efficient SDN. Because there was a crisis, and with help from our partners, we were able to integrate this health system that is now addressing our COVID response.”

Bataan’s proximity to Metro Manila contributed to its numerous COVID-19 cases. Acting swiftly and decisively to the crisis, however, has kept the pandemic manageable.

Coronavirus transmissions have slowed down in Bataan, Aklan, and Agusan del Sur, according to the Zuellig Family Foundation (ZFF), which has been helping those three provinces establish their own COVID-19 response system.

In a statement issued on Monday, ZFF attributed the decline in those provinces to “an integrated COVID-19 response with increased testing capacity, enhanced hospital and isolation facilities, and improved contact tracing.”

According to the statement, the effective reproduction number of COVID-19 — or Rt — in the three provinces in the first week of November was below the threshold level, which is set at 1.

The foundation pointed out that the low Rt numbers were not due to a lack of testing.

“The test per capita — or the number of individuals tested for every 100,000 population—has increased by 7% in Bataan, 11% in Aklan, and 19% in Agusan del Sur. Swab test results are released within two days of testing,” ZFF said.

Those provinces also implemented other measures that would limit the spread of the virus.

“With the biggest population among the three provinces and the closest, geographically, to Metro Manila, Bataan has begun using a QR code to monitor the movement of people to and from the province,” ZFF said.

“With these interventions, the case fatality rate (CFR) — or the proportion of deaths among infected patients — in Agusan del Sur and Bataan are kept below the global average (2.8%). Bataan’s CFR is at 1.9% and Agusan del Sur’s is at 1.6%. Aklan is still striving to bring down its 5.2% CFR,” it added.

Recent data from the Department of Health (DOH) show that COVID-19 cases nationwide have started to dwindle, with the lowest number of active cases being recorded in the last three months.

A lot of observers warned, however, that this may just be brought by the recent calamities — typhoons that forced some testing sites to temporarily suspend operations.

Aside from that, DOH itself warned that crowding in evacuation centers — which were set up in schools with the recent onslaught of three typhoons Quinta, Rolly, and Ulysses — may trigger an increase in COVID-19 cases in affected areas.

To date, the country has a total of 409,574 COVID-19 patients — of whom 27,369 are considered active cases while 374,336 have recovered. The death toll stands at 7,839.

Local government play a key role in fighting the pandemic, according to the ZFF chair and president, Ernesto Garilao.

“The success of the COVID-19 response depends on the capacity of the local government units (LGUs) to identify, contact trace and test and provide quarantine facilities for the COVID-19 positives, as well as hospital care for severe cases,” Garilao said.

“Without an integrated COVID-19 responsive system, the virus will make its way to the non-infected,” he added.

Still, he believes there is more to do to ensure that the battle against the pandemic will be won.

“Investments in the local health system must be sufficient to have the following: adequate health manpower for the population, sufficient resources for the different health services, a reliable health information system, adequate medicine supply, adequate financing,” Garilao said.

“Total investments will be high but that is the price to pay for resiliency,” he added.

(This story was published in Inquirer.net on Nov. 17, 2020)