Inspiring Girls

LOGARTA

The golds we got in the Asian Games were through the efforts of our females! Up to now talk of heroes is dominated by men. So let us talk about female heroes. The search for these inspiring women has been facilitated by the Heritage Cards, Cebuana Trailblazers prepared with the Cebu Provincial Government and LAW Center, Inc. in 2008 with a group led by Dr. Erlinda Kintanar-Alburo of the Cebuano Studies Center.

We start with Atty. Arbet-Sta. Ana-Yongco. The challenge that she confronted continues today — violence against women. As a young lady she supported her law studies partly by her singing. After graduation and passing the bar examination she opted for alternative law. She responded to a need, many women were victims of all forms of violence. Women also needed to be empowered so that together with their lawyers they would fight injustice. The victories she was seeking was not that of merely winning the case. She joined Legal Alternatives for Women Center, Inc. as an alternative lawyer.

Alona Bacolod was married to the son of a powerful political family. Her partner’s family was not only politically and economically powerful, but also led a big group of faithful believers. Alona was murdered. Arbet fought against the husband accused of parricide. She tried to secure Alona’s brothers who would stand as witnesses to the crime, but they were massacred. One morning as she started her day with morning prayers in her office she too was shot.

Inday Nita Cortes-Daluz was another very brave female. Described as “Heroine of the Airwaves,” her card continues: “In the martial law period, she became the voice for victims of human rights abuses and, despite censorship, her programs covered such events as the anti-Marcos “Freedom March” in Cebu in 1980. She was arrested and detained at Camp Lapu-Lapu and her radio station padlocked.”

Long before the current drive against drug dealers, Inday Nita was looking for ways to deal with the concern. In her community she was quite disturbed that packs of drugs were peddled like ordinary merchandise in corner stores. Searching for approaches she observed that tricycles were distributors of the harmful dangerous drugs. She proposed that these would be banned in the subdivision. They reported her to Ricardo Cardinal Vidal. He must have seen her point for the ban continued. Inday Nita later realized that the problem went beyond the subdivision. When she joined Kamatuoran, an anti-narcopolitics group she was strongly inviting all to take part in the struggle against dangerous drugs and the economically and politically powerful who were benefitting and hence protecting them. She said when the small sellers were out of their village, they continued the business in another place nearby.

If ever we hesitate, feeling we do not have what is needed, let us remember Felicidad Climaco, courageous nationalist, fighter for our independence who, faced an American audience of 15,000 together with other Filipino male nationalists to assert our independence.

Let us never allow being a female stand as an obstacle to the full development of the gifts bestowed upon us by our heavenly Father. Let gender not stop us from full involvement with the affairs of our nation and our world. Instead let us be fully aware and sensitive to the challenges of the realities now facing us. Dr. Ines Villa-Gonzalez was a writer, journalist, educator, and social worker.

“She was the only woman among four awardees of the Premio Zobel for excellence in Spanish literary writing for her book “Filipinas en el Camino de la Cultura.” She also wrote “Philippine Epic of Democracy.” Here she describes her participation in the struggle for the woman’s vote in the Philippines. She declared: that women “have been dedicating themselves to worthwhile social,

industrial, economic, cultural, scientific advancement for the nation. Yet they were deprived of suffrage, although they were part and parcel of home, community, and the nation, in the realm of politics the women were excluded then from the political growth and general forward democratic evolution of the nation and government. Yet they were a great asset to the community and to the nation with their honest desire for a good democratic rule, for good laws and an effective enforcement of the same by efficient public officials.”