IF YOU can't understand the rage of the Metro Manila squatters a.k.a. informal settlers, try understanding the internally displaced persons or bakwits.
Compared to the Metro Manila settlers, the bakwits are very meek. They are so used to just pack up and go at the first volley of fire and recreate a life wherever the safe place is for the moment, they so used to getting pittance from government, and they don't throw pillboxes, Molotov bombs, and rocks as they are chased out of the homes. They just pack up and flee, the bullets chasing them instead. But it is this desperate quiet that makes them easy to forget, disregard, ignore.
Thus, government just counts them in terms of number of families in evacuation areas, not even counting those who are not in evacuation areas apparently with the presumption that those people are in good hands. May we ask those in government then, how do you think you'd survive after fleeing overnight with just the basics, if at all, even if you find shelter in a relative's house?
Beyond just the armed conflict that drives them away, however, is a conflict that besets families over the need to survive.
In the study "Gender and Livelihoods among Internally Displaced Persons in Mindanao, Philippines" by Rufa Cagoco-Guiam released this month by Brookings - LSE Project on Internal Displacement, it underlined the gender dimension of internally displaced persons and how the women bear the brunt of this decades old problem.
For one, in any conflict, the men are the ones who leave: whether as rebels, as soldiers or auxiliary armed forces or parties to clan war. In the process, they abandon their regular economic activities as well as their key role in providing for their families. Women then take over the rein to provide for their families, but this does not come automatically with empowerment. More like total enslavement.
"Young women and children in displaced communities are also vulnerable to human trafficking," the study reads. "Conflict-prone areas, such as the provinces in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, are major sources of trafficked victims."
Then there is the fact that families cannot just re-make their livelihood once they vacate their homes because most of the time, their source of livelihood isn't where they have found shelter.
But with the innate drive to nurture the children, women have been found to be very resilient and innovative in finding ways.
"In evacuation centers, internally displaced women are also the first to seek out assistance from various outside sources while the men typically 'command' the women on what to do," the report said. "Displaced women are also usually among the first who organize the community into different committees to manage the evacuation camp, especially with regards to the distribution of relief goods."
There is something here that has to be tapped: the role of women not just in nurturing the family in places of conflict but also to spread peace.
"Studies have shown that women have played crucial roles in the settlement of petty community conflicts, as well as in working toward more sustainable processes of conflict transformation, especially in the Mindanao context," the report reads. "When women manage cooperatives or lead local committees, such endeavors have greater chances of success than those run by men."
But in a patriarchal society that is most dominant in rural and conflict areas, these same women are often subjugated or hurt because in striving to provide for the children, they have slighted their partner's ego.
Top on the recommendations of the study then is that "economic empowerment programs for women should have built-in guidelines for the protection of women, and local legislation or ordinances should be formulated to institutionalize these guidelines."
A little more compassion, too, will go a long, long way.