Cynthia Villar happy as No. 5

With 32 men and women seeking election to the Senate, Cynthia Villar should be happy about being No. 5 best choice by respondents in the recent poll surveys. But she has new additional reason to feel elated: the Ramsar List of Wetlands of International Importance has included the Las Piñas-Parañaque Critical Habitat and Ecotourism Area (LPPCHEA) in its list.

“The inclusion of LPPCHEA on the Ramsar List is very good news,” said the former Representative from Las Piñas who is running for the Senate under the PNoy Team banner. “We should be proud of its recognition, and at the same time, we are encouraged even more to protect it,” she said.

LPPCHEA is the sixth Philippine site designated as “Wetlands of International Importance” on its list on March 15.

The others on the list are: the Tubbataha Reefs National Marine Park in Sulu (posted on Dec. 11, 1999); the Agusan Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary (listed on Dec. 11, 1999); the Nauan Lake National Park in Oriental Mindoro (listed Dec. 11, 1999); the Olango Island Wildlife Sanctuary in Cebu (listed on Jan. 7, 1994), and the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park in Palawan (listed on June 30, 2012).

In 1994, the Philippines joined the Ramsar Convention which was signed in Ramsar, Iran in 1971. The convention is an intergovernmental treaty that embodies the commitments of its member countries to maintain the ecological character of the Wetlands of International Importance and to plan for the “wise use” or “sustainable use, of all of the wetlands in their territories.”

The international treaty organization has recognized LPPCHEA’s global importance to biodiversity and the need to give it special protection from various threats.

The sanctuary, known as the Freedom Islands, lies in the Las Piñas-Parañaque area. It covers 203 hectares of coastline in Parañaque City and 431 hectares of foreshore waters in Las Piñas City. The 175-hectare wetland along the Manila Bay serves as an avian refuge for 150 species of birds in Metro Manila, 72 of which are found in the LPPCHEA. It is also the remaining periphery for mangroves and salt marshes.

The LPPCHEA was declared as a critical habitat in 2007 by Proclamation No. 142. But Cynthia and bird watchers are concerned about the threat to its extinction, posed by a planned 635.14 hectare Manila Bay reclamation project.

The proposed reclamation project, according to Cynthia, will have catastrophic effects — including damage to the bird sanctuary. It will also cause severe flooding in 37 barangays in Bacoor, 11 in Parañaque and 17 in Las Piñas.

Accordingly, Rep. Villar filed a petition for a Writ of Kalikasan on March 16, 2012, against the said project, which the Supreme Court granted in April 10 last year. However, more than the Writ of Kalikasan is the need for a permanent environmental protection order from the Court of Appeals so that the reclamation project will be dumped for good.

This columnist finds good reason to vote for candidates to the Senate like Villar. Her record as a three-term member of Congress shows her capacity for good governance and legislative wisdom. Her bills covered the well-being of such sectors as women, children, overseas Filipino workers, educators. She is widely known for her support of entrepreneurship as the key to creating jobs. Her livelihood programs for Las Piñas are geared towards helping people gain the skills needed to start their own small business. Consequently, she was awarded as one of Filipina Entrepreneurs of 2013 by Go Negosyo.

An earlier award Villar is proud of is her district’s choice by the United Nations Water Assessment Program’s “Water for Life” Best Practices Award. The 2011 Prize was awarded to the Las Piñas-Zapote River System Rehabilitation Program “for its outstanding contribution towards improving the living environment and its demonstrable and tangible impact on improving people’s quality of life within a metropolitan river basin.”

Cynthia guarantees to continue to promote barangay-based livelihood centers that are benefiting more than 500 families in the city and is being duplicated in various provinces. A total of 111 pilot centers have been established nationwide. The success of her green social enterprises has earned for her the moniker “Misis Hanep Buhay.”

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The world shuddered when stories came out in media about the mutilation of young girls in Africa. The United Nations and non-government organizations exposed the practice, mostly committed in African countries, of girls’ clitoris being snipped, the rationale being to prevent them from enjoying the sex act, but pleasing their husbands when they came of age. This practice continues to this day.

Another cultural practice that makes many of the “civilized” world shrink in terror, is the killing of women for so-called misbehavior that violates the family’s “honor.”

The latest incident reported by international communications networks is that of Gul Meena, a 17-year-old Pakistani girl who was axed by her brother. Five years ago, she was forced to marry a 60-year-old man at the age of 12 instead of being sent to school. Gul tells that he used to beat her every day. When she told her mother of her being beaten up, the reply she got was that she was in the care of her husband, and no longer of her parents.

She met an Afghan boy, and in November last year, she fled with him to Afghanistan where she probably thought she would live happily ever after. But she had, by her family’s standard, shamed and dishonored her family; her brother tracked the couple down, killed the boy, and axed Gul, and left, thinking Gul was dead. Gul survived, and was taken into the custody of a woman-NGO. Pictures shown by CNN show deep scars on her face, and Gul saying she wished she were dead.

The International Resource Center defines honor-based violence as “a phenomenon where a person (most often a woman) is subjected to violence by her collective family or community in order to restore ‘honor,’ presumed to have been lost by her behavior, most often through expressions of sexual autonomy.”

The United Nations Population Fund reported 5,000 honor killings per year in 2000. The figures, according to International Resource Center, are disputed, so the actual number of honor killings and acts of “honor-based” crimes is not known. But, says IRC, there are currently around 1000 honor killings per year in India alone, and these occur across all the major faiths of the region, including Hindus and Sikhs.

“Crimes against women motivated to maintain or restore “honor” can be found in a variety of cultures and historical periods, a law that allowed for honor killing was part of the Italian penal code right up until 1980. While in the current period, “honor” killings are mostly associated with the Middle East and other countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, this may not reflect reality as similar crimes may be being committed elsewhere but are not yet recognized as “honor-related.”

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