IN THE Philippines, the observance of National Women’s Month serves as a “venue to highlight women’s achievements and discuss continuing and emerging women’s empowerment and gender equality issues and concerns, challenges, and commitments.”
As we celebrate this very special month, we put the spotlight on three inspiring ladies who are bound by the same burning passion for their respective advocacies.
Atty. Jennifer Lao Ramos, 48, is a staunch environmental lawyer who grew up in Pagadian City and Davao City. She finished AB Legal Management at the University of Sto. Tomas, Law at Ateneo de Davao University, and Master of Climate Change at Australian National University. She loves travelling, diving, biking, birding, spelunking, photography, and gardening.
On the other hand, Kamila Alabado Navarro, 27, is a professional science communicator based in Singapore. She graduated magna cum laude with a degree in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology from the University of the Philippines Diliman. The Philippine Science High School (Southern Mindanao Campus) alumna also has a Master of Science Communication from the Australian National University. Her passion project is the Facebook and Instagram page “Pinoy Scientists”, which aims to showcase the unique stories of Filipino scientists around the world. Currently, Kami is a scientific editor at the National University of Singapore.
Meanwhile, mom-of-two Dr. Vanina Htun-Javier, 44, is a medical oncologist who has clinics in Davao City and Kidapawan City. Nina, as she is fondly called, is half-Burmese and half-Filipina as her father hails from Burma, now Myanmar. She is an alumna of the Philippine Science High School (S. Mindanao Campus), University of the Philippines Los Baños, and UERM Memorial Medical Center. She took her Internal Medicine residency training at Brokenshire Hospital and Fellowship in Medical Oncology training at Jose R. Reyes Memorial Medical Center. Presently, she is taking her MBA in Health at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business in Rockwell.
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Why did you choose your profession?
JENNY: In college, I was an officer at Haribon-UST, an environmental club. As I became active in club activities, I realized that environment is life. If we trash it, we kill our life source, so I thought I would take a master’s in environmental science, after college, to contribute to saving the Earth. Then one day in environmental law class, my professor was talking about illegal logging. He declared that not one illegal logger has been convicted. It reverberated in my ears, then a certain calmness settled over, and I knew I should be an environmental lawyer. It sounds biblical, like Paul’s epiphany, but it really happened to me.
KAMI: I discovered during my undergraduate years that I had a knack for public speaking, and greatly preferred presenting research versus doing experiments in the laboratory. As a science communicator, I could marry my love for presenting with my knowledge of science—and use these skills to benefit society. Between the natural disasters that regularly hit the Philippines, the ongoing climate crisis, and the Covid-19 pandemic that we are all living through, the ability to clearly communicate scientific concepts to various stakeholders is needed more than ever.
NINA: I initially wanted to be an endocrinologist, where my mother had an influence in it because she had hyperthyroidism when she was in her youthful days but was eventually diagnosed to have Thyroid Cancer at 26 years old as well. Way back in 2016, when I was still in my first-year residency training in Internal Medicine at Brokenshire Hospital, I had the traumatic experience of witnessing my agonizing mother endure her cancer journey. After completion of her surgery and RAI treatments, she was then a cancer survivor already for 26 years. But in 2016, it metastasized to her lungs, and she deteriorated fast from that point in time. It was a traumatic experience emotionally and that is when I had a change of heart to pursue the field of medical oncology instead.
What are the highs and lows of your profession?
JENNY: It can be frustrating to stop corporations from putting up pollutive coal-fired power plants, save forests and mountains from open-pit mining, or stop conversion of wetland into airports. Big corporations have all the resources they have, so even the government supports them and gives them permits. We lose the cases. It looks futile at times, but we still fight on so that the stories of the affected fisherfolks and farmers, and the testimonies of scientists would still be on record. And if the environmental disaster we seek to prevent occurs, it is clear from court records who allowed it to happen. Despite the frustrations, we celebrate the wins, however, small.
KAMI: Through my work as a science communicator, I have been able to connect with amazing scientists from all over the world. For instance, last year, I interviewed a Japanese scientist who was one of the forefathers of artificial intelligence. Being able to converse with and learn from such passionate visionaries is definitely one of the best parts of the job. That said, science communication is still a fairly underdeveloped and under-the-radar profession in the Philippines. Training and career opportunities are scarce and are not particularly lucrative. Without a solid infrastructure and ecosystem, it is especially hard to eke out a living as a science communicator in the Philippines.
NINA: It is not a sub-specialization for the faint-hearted. That I can really say to all those considering this profession. You need to have emotional endurance for this. Many times, after every clinic day, I sit in my car alone for like an hour or two to de-stress and unload before going home, especially in the Philippine setting where we mostly see patients in their locally advanced to terminal stages. And this is so because health care is one of the greatest out-of-pocket household expenditures of a family. And a majority cannot finance diagnostics and completion of treatment of their disease. It is however very rewarding in times where you can provide “cure” in early-stage cancers and the patients follow-up and come to you every 3 months, or every 6 months or yearly and update you and being very grateful about how they have fully recovered from their disease and how their life priorities and perceptions have changed.
Why should young women consider your profession?
JENNY: It is exciting! As environmental lawyers, we work with communities to empower them in protecting their resources. We teach them by demystifying the law so that even without lawyers, they can assert their rights. We also do legal research and policy advocacy, so we work with leaders and lawmakers. We also litigate. While I was based in Davao, I represented the Philippine Eagle Foundation in prosecuting a guy who shot, chopped up, cooked, and ate a Philippine Eagle! We won the case.
Most importantly, young women should consider environmental lawyering because we badly need earth defenders. I think there are around 50 environmental lawyers working with communities in the Philippines. Environmental lawyering can be frustrating, but we cannot allow corporations and governments to destroy the earth, our only home, without a fight.
KAMI: There is a wonderful book by Angela Saini called “Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong and the New Research That’s Rewriting the Story”. In her novel, she discusses the impact of sexism on scientific research -- including how common conditions like cardiovascular disease and asthma are under-researched in women, who may manifest them in ways distinct from men. Without women in science and science communication, such glaring gaps would not be addressed, and there would be little chance of improving the quality of life for fellow women.
NINA: Young women should consider this profession because I feel and think that this is our edge as women, providing empathy naturally to people who we think need it most. In this profession, I believe it does not entail just physical healing but spiritual, emotional, and mental as well.
How do you define an empowered woman?
JENNY: In this milieu where swearing, lying, killing, and stealing have become acceptable to many people, I would say that an empowered woman is one who musters the courage to speak truth to power, even when it is inconvenient, even when it means losing friends and opportunities.
KAMI: An empowered woman empowers others—authentically and unconditionally.
NINA: I am not a feminist, let me make that clear first as I have read one definition in a book stating that feminism means that women are better than men. I believe however in gender intelligence, equality, and diversity. I believe men and women each have their own important contributions whether to family, community, organizations, and country, and should be duly credited and recognized equally. It is, however, unfortunate that even up to this generation, I still feel a stealth inequality in women. And so, an empowered woman for me is bold and courageous enough to refuse to be defined by a cultural and social stereotype. She is driven by authenticity and has the confidence and relentlessness to be who she desires to be in this world. She knows her worth and is stubborn and passionate enough to leave a legacy behind.
E-mail the author at mom.about.town.dvo@gmail.com. Visit http://momabouttowndavao.blogspot.com/.