“If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change.”  Thus goes the late Michael Jackson’s song “Man in the Mirror” – a fitting reminder to the “few good men” who attended Save Our Women’s Third Men’s Summit on Domestic and Intimate Violence (DIV) against Women last Saturday, October 29 at the Multi-Purpose Hall of Baguio City Hall, in observance of Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

Jointly supported by the Gender Equality and Development (GEAD) Council of the Baguio City Government, co-chaired by Mayor Mauricio Domogan and Councilor Lulu Tabanda, who gave the Welcome Remarks, and by the Rotary Club of Baguio, the Summit was a melting pot of concerned gentlemen representing the PNP Baguio City Police Office; regional offices of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), Professional Regulation Commission (PRC), Commission on Higher Education (CHED), Civil Service Commission (CSC), Department of Education (DepEd), Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit (CIDU), Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP); and schools University of the Philippines (UP)-Baguio, University of Baguio (UB), BVS Colleges and Data Center College;  representatives from several anti-VAW-oriented barangays;  the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) and the media; a sprinkling of professionals and private individuals; plus the lone male representative from the Sangguniang Panlungsod in the person of Councilor Edison Bilog  – indeed a merry mix of different professions and occupations, beliefs and principles, but all genuinely concerned about their mothers, wives, daughters and sisters.  Sixty-nine strong, they endeavored to actively participate in the four-hour activity to discuss “Machismo”, “Violence within the Family” and “Bystanders’ Reactions to Domestic and Intimate Violence Situations” and to prepare an action plan meant to help end men’s violence against women in relationships. 

Divided into teams symbolized by light-colored tags more often associated with women and women’s “preferences”, the men echoed among themselves the need for more male involvement in lectures, seminars and workshops on Domestic and Intimate Violence against Women; the serious involvement of the heads of their offices and organizations; and effective information campaigns through media and in schools.   One group reiterated the need to be educated further, agreeing that “it is one thing to listen. It is another thing to be able to understand. What we need are people who understand, act and who know what to do”, and another group suggested active membership in organizations that espouse anti-VAW. Not a few complained about the lack of time to discuss the issue more thoroughly, and quite a number of participants have asked for a Fourth Men’s Summit and more deliberations in the very near future.

Save Our Women Trustees Theodore Solang (a program coordinator at DSWD-CAR), Jeremy Lee Dela Cruz (Guidance Counselor at Saint Louis University) and Vittorio Jerico Cawis (Philosophy instructor at University of Baguio), and youngest active member Chino Chow (a BSIT student) were given the reins to run the Summit, the third in a continuing series of awareness campaigns, while the female members of Save provided support from the sidelines.

After Save Founder and President Patti Gallardo expressed the organization’s whole-hearted appreciation to the Summit’s supporters, she praised the male participants for representing the current minority of men willing to recognize, speak out and act against domestic and intimate violence against women, despite the fact that many people are still caught up in stereo-typical beliefs about the roles of men and women, where men should always be unfeeling, powerful and aggressive, while women should always be sensitive, subservient and defensive.  She gave the example of the recent Ponce Family massacre in Cebu as one reason for everyone to take a closer look at the reality of domestic violence.  Very recently, at the height of a domestic squabble, Emmanuel, 55, had shot his wife 53-year old Melinda Ponce, three of their children—Elaine Grace, 26, Heather Joy, 24, son Emlin Bridge, 18, and their maid, 34, before committing suicide inside their home at 8:00 in the morning. “When other families were just beginning a new day, the Ponces had ended theirs forever.  The youngest daughter, Embrelaince, may have survived, but only physically. The traumatic event of seeing her mother and siblings being shot to death by the father she loved has almost surely meted her a death sentence as well.”  No longer “just a family affair”, one of the latest of so many tragic events has served to highlight everyone’s responsibility in ending domestic violence.

The first Domestic Violence Awareness Month was observed in the US in October 1987; and henceforth, it has become a month filled with activities with common themes: mourning those who have died because of domestic violence, celebrating those who have survived, and connecting those who work to end violence against women and their children.  Domestic Violence Awareness Month is not yet officially observed in the Philippines.  But SAVE OUR WOMEN hopes it will have its rightful place, at least in Baguio City’s calendar of events.