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The Center for Women's Studies: the campus hub for gender concerns
By Olivia H. Tripon

From left, Dr. Carol Sobritchea, with Esel Panlaque and Wanet Lacsamana at the UPCWS booth at the APNGO Forum in Bangkok.

Bangkok -- For an outsider like me, the University of the Philippines Center for Women's Studies (UPCWS) is a place where we always get invited to book launchings and lectures. Indeed, according to Carol Sobritchea, Executive Director, they have published around "100 books and IEC materials that are presently used in classroom teaching and research."

At the Asia Pacific NGO Forum held in Bangkok last July 2004. UPCWS showcased their core programs and publications (which were sold out) at a booth enthusiastically put up by Esel Panlaque,training and advocacy officer, Laniza "Wanet" Lacsamana, researcher, Remedios "Peach" Mondiguing, coordinator of the Office of Anti-sexual Harassment and Betty Pena, feminist counselor.

The theme was "Women's Studies for gender equality and women's empowerment", appropriate for the Bangkok regional meeting in preparation for the tenth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women dubbed "Beijing + 10".

The 49th session of the Commission on the Status of Women which will start on February 28 until March 11 in New York will review and assess the Platform for Action based on the reports of governments which committed to work for women's equality, development and peace in Beijing in 1995.

Beginnings

The UPCWS was launched on Jan. 23, 1990 with Dr. Sylvia Guerrero at the helm. The concept for the women's studies center was initiated by a group of women faculty involved in research and outreach programs for women in 1988.

Some of the UPCWS objectives are " to initiate the integration of gender concepts in academic curricula and to encourage and strengthen teaching, research, extension and advocacy programs on and for women", aside from creating "awareness of women and gender-related issues in the university and in the larger society," its brochure says.

The UPCWS exhibit clearly showed the five core programs of the Center - Research and Publications, Training and Outreach, Curriculum Development, Crisis Counseling Service and the Kalinga Day Care Center.

Research and publications

The Center has two regular publications: The Review of Women's Studies, an academic journal, with an international readership as a member of Feminist Knowledge Network; and Pananaw (which means perspective in Filipino) a quarterly newsletter on gender activities within and outside the university.

Guerrero, who initially steered the Center's course for a decade, came up with publications, mostly research materials spanning a wide range of topics from feminist research and globalization to human sexuality education. Other titles are "Violence Against Women in Times of War and Peace", gender dynamics in visual arts, and in the context of "migrant wives and househusbands", women's health in fiction and poetry including "Gender Sensitivity in the Court System".

The Center has a library and a collection of print, video and multimedia works on women and related topics that are used not only by students, but by other women's organizations as well.

Curriculum Development

"While the Center is not a teaching unit, it is firmly committed to achieve a gender-fair curriculum through mainstreaming gender concepts and issues in existing courses" offering electives in the undergraduate curriculum. It has conducted seminars and workshops aimed at developing a pool of faculty members capable of teaching gender concepts and issues," said the Decade Report of the UPCWS.

With Guerrero as president of the Women's Studies Association of the Philippines (WSAP) in 1994, the Center served as WSAP secretariat. As of 1999, according to the Decade Report, WSAP has a total of 367 individual members representing some 65 schools around the country.

However, UPCWS is not just an academic center but a bustling hub for women's activities and gender concerns in the campus community. Sobritchea, in an email interview, said that the UPCWS has "a crisis counseling facility and a mechanism to speedily respond to rape, sexual harassment and related cases on campus."

The UP Diliman Gender Office

The Gender Office started in 1999 offering services such as gender sensitive crisis counseling with phone-in hotline and walk-in counseling; gender sensitivity training open to all student organizations upon request and Kalinga Day Care Center

The Gender Office produced pocket-sized IEC materials on rape, sexual harassment, reproductive health, and domestic violence, vital handy information for students, faculty and the whole community. Pena said that there are now nine campuses in the system with a Gender Office. "The Center is a system unit under the UP system with the objective to respond to gender concerns offering training, research and services such as crisis counseling. Pena is consultant and there are two full time counselors.

Training and outreach

Lacsamana, in an interview, shared the various training the Center offers - gender sensitivity, gender responsive planning, gender and development (GAD) budget, feminist research. Aside from UP, Diliman, there are regional GAD resource centers (GRC) composed of 70% academe and the rest government agencies and non-government organizations in Central Mindanao University in Bukidnon, the University of Northern Philippines in Vigan, Pangasinan State University, UP Iloilo, UP Cebu, UP Tacloban, Western Mindanao State University and UP Davao.

She also talked about the assessment of sexuality education programs in selected secondary and tertiary schools in the Philippines. "The findings will be used to develop training modules for guidance counselors and teachers on human sexuality and trainers' training," Lacsamana said.

The Kalinga Day Care Center

Launched in June 1998, Kalinga in Filipino means care, so apt for the on-campus day care center. Children of UP students and employees get a special low price on a half day or full dayprogram. It is also open to other children and can accommodate up to 35 kids 1.5 to 5 years old.

The Kalinga Day Care Center is managed by UPCWS and is a joint project with the UPCWS Foundation, which was established in 1992. The Foundation, now headed by Guerrero, founding director, works closely with the Center to generate financial and technical resources.

The Office of Anti-Sexual Harassment

This office was specifically created to implement the Anti-Sexual Harassment Act of 1995 after the UP Board of Regents approved the UP Implementing Rules and Regulations in 1998. Its brochure states the forms of sexual harassment, how and where to file a formal complaint, with hotlines for counseling services; and in cases of rape and sexual assault, hotlines to the UP Police and UP Health Service.

Mondiguing said there were already sexual harassment cases in 1992 and had been kept confidential. The Office of Anti-Sexual Harassment is a mechanism to address a unified, comprehensive response. They have tie-ups with the Office of Legal Aid, Medical Health Services, and the Office of Student Affairs for temporary shelter. "Recently we rescued 25 students being harassed by the landlord," Mondiguing revealed.

When asked if students are informed about its services, she replied "Every start of the school year legal aid interns give Gender Sensitivity Training (GST) to freshmen." In December 2002, Mondiguing reported that 13
violence-prone areas were identified and they initiated the " Light up UP" and signature campaign. "We're pushing to require self-defense classes too," Mondiguing added.

UPCWS and Beijing + 10

How did the Center fare 15 years later? Sobritchea said they have women's gender studies programs in all UP campuses - Diliman, Manila, Los Banos, Baguio, Cebu, Tacloban, and Mindanao.. and "the women's studies faculty members have developed their expertise as researchers, trainers, consultants in various fields of gender work - etc."

Moreover, Pananaw (Jan-June 2004 issue) reported that the UPCWS received an award among others, from the Soroptimist International, Diliman Chapter last March 2004. It gave the Center the "Women Advancing the Status of Other Women" Award, for its having served as an "academic arm to do research and training and to provide technical assistance to the women's empowerment movement in the Philippines," the plaque stated.

The Center has received a number of awards recently for being the best, if not one of the best institutions that has successfully established a Women's Studies program. "We are proud of having conducted several studies on various women's issues like domestic violence that guided the crafting of laws and development of programs in the Philippines; supported the establishment of women's and gender centers and curricular programs of other universities and colleges," said Sobritchea, UPCWS executive director since 2000.

Still, in keeping with the Beijing thrust in advocating for women's rights, UPCWS led the Project Committee in the first Gender Justice Awards, a joint project with the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women, the Commission on Human Rights, the United Nations Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and Zonta. Several judges, many of them male from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, were recognized for their gender sensitive decisions in August 2004 in a ceremony attended by Chief Justice Hilario Davide in Manila. The top prize went to a woman, Judge Nimfa Sitaca,

Sobritchea, who was at the NGO Forum in Huairo, China in 1995 and a member of the official delegation representing the NGO Sector in the Beijing+5 assessment meeting in New York in 2000 has this to say about the challenges still to be hurdled ten years after Beijing:

"The challenges that lie ahead include sustaining what we have all successfully accomplished at the moment. There is great danger that many programs for women will be discontinued either because of lack of funds or new forms of resistance from some quarters. We need to work harder to promote the reproductive health and rights framework in the country. Most importantly, we have to participate in engendering the discourse of poverty, the most serious problem of the [Philippines] at the moment."