Ahoy There, Women!

Saturday began at 3 a.m. when a cab picked me up, and we motored down to pick up friend Toottee Chanco Pacis’s assistant Carol (Toottee was scheduled to meet with a quilting instructor later in the morning and could not join us). It was smooth driving down EDSA all the way to the vast SM Mall of Asia by Manila Bay.

Jun Calamba, the experienced driver, found the Esplanade Sunset Strip despite the dark hour and the street lights that were not enough to illuminate the directional signs. We were guided by the line of cars and vans, women and men unloading tables and assorted events paraphernalia. This was it—the site of the Pinay in Action 2010 fun run that was to be led by runner 0001, Sen. Pia Cayetano.

Her staff were there. Like us, they were bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and excited. They set up our table under a white tent right beside the Giant Carousel. A cloth was whipped out to cover the table. It was too early to bring out the goods of the Benguet ladies who crocheted assorted items from creamer covers to giant gym bags.

So Carol and I watched, fascinated, as the runners, mostly women, arrived in droves and limbered up. When the sky lightened, Carol brought out sample goods, and we displayed them with at least one of each item from the luggage.

The day was a first for me in many ways. I’ve always patronized bazaars, but this was my first time to be a volunteer seller. No pay, no personal gain. Just a believer that women should have their own money as it empowers them to help their own families and make choices in their lives.

Toottee and I had come down from Baguio at our own expense, lugging down the goods at the back of her car last Wednesday. The night before, we had staged a pictorial at her house with good results. INQUIRER’s Tina Arce Dumlao of the Business section understood the Benguet women’s cause and hurried me up with my deadline. On Thursday, I composed my article in a friend’s café with Wifi after early coffee with Toottee. By noon, my piece was done, and I emailed it quickly to my editor. By afternoon, I used my leftover notes for a blog entry.

So Saturday, there we were—Carol and me, the novice tinderas. Sen. Cayetano stood out in the crowd although they wore uniform hot pink t-shirts. Comfortable with the description “feminist,” she told the runners to run for their health, for the cause of the indigent patients of cervical and breast cancer (thus, the color pink), for women’s rights, etc. And she spoke into the mic in a calm, measured way without resorting to motherhood statements.

That women’s rights, especially reproductive health, remain high on this young legislator’s agenda is proof that Pinays of my and Toottee’s generation cannot still say with the sweep of conviction to Carol and our daughters that we have indeed “come a long way, babies.”

Carol and I couldn’t be passive sellers. So after we decided she’d be bantay and treasurer, I called out to anyone who passed by our booth, “Towels from Benguet, come see the towels from Benguet.” At one point I placed hand and bigger towels along the length of my two arms and went from booth to booth, asking the other sellers and exhibitors to visit the Benguet women’s livelihood project booth and showing them our wares. Girl pal Ana Calimbas Santos also hopped from booth to booth, handing out flyers for her cause, the women's reproductive health website called SexandSensibility.com.

I think my kumare Gigi Duenas de Beaupre, self-confessed tiangge queen of the French West Indies, would’ve been proud of us. At the close of the run, when the sweaty participants crossed the finish line and lined up for the freebies from Nesvita, Summit Media and the other sponsors, they passed by our booth. Of course, the towels crocheted at the edges, were the best-sellers followed by the bedroom slippers, the bonnets and a tissue box holder. The lanky senator passed by everyone’s booth, thanking the women for their participation.

She dropped by our booth and as I explained what the project was all about, she smiled and said, “You know who loves to crochet in our family? My ninety-year-old lola! Help me choose something for her.” We brought out the purple and white Afghan throw and others in colors of green and ochre. She right away went for the purple, the color of women.

Meanwhile, Karen Kunawicz, who won for Best Runner in Costume, also came by and saw the square-toed bedroom slippers which I like to call footsies. “Wow!” she exclaimed, “Pirate slippers!” So she’ll be wearing them to be warm, I guess, on cold nights when the blessed rains fall.

When the tents folded up by past 9 a.m., Carol, who was visiting this large mall complex for the first time, got up, brought out her cell phone camera and with a skip in her heart, took shots of the now lighted up carousel and Manila Bay which, because she is a mountain girl, was seeing again for the first time in her young life.

Karen’s girl pirate banner says it all for us: “Women who behave rarely make history.”

Photo of Karen Kunawicz in pirate costume shared by fellow exhibitor SING DE LEON of Kababaihan Laban sa Karahasan (Kalakasan) and Women's Media Circle Foundation Inc.

Toottee and Laarni, Julia and Ana

Tuesday night my friend Toottee Chanco Pacis and I were in panic mode. While crochet trainor Teresita Coloma busied herself repairing products for selling at Sen. Pia Cayetano's Pinay in Action fun run exhibit scheduled this Saturday at the SM Mall of Asia, Toottee and I anxiously waited for freelance photographer Laarni Ilagan.

Laarni works fulltime for the Benguet Electric Cooperative (Beneco) and has been detailed outside Baguio City. She has been reliably documenting the activities of the Baguio Aquarelle Society and always says, "Any time, Ma'am Babeth, Ma'am Baboo (Mondonedo)" when we thank her for her free services.

So when the opportunity to write about the Tublay-La Trinidad women's crochet project came on that same Tuesday, Laarni was foremost on my mind. She called to say she had to do work from nine to five but would be available after five. Toottee thought of possible models for the ladies' products. "The mestizas!" she cried. She meant Julia "Laney" De Raedt and daughter Ana (Mika to us). Mother and child are part of our Greenhouse Christian Fellowship (Bible studies on Saturday evening at the Pacis greenhouse in Happy Homes, Baguio City).

The De Raedts showed up on time, but we didn't know Laarni's cell phone went dead and that she had lost her way. It was dark when she finally found the Pacis residence. She didn't have time to take deep breaths or drink a glass of water; I sort of art directed her, gave her an idea of the product shots we needed.

Nobody knows the havoc that goes on behind a pictorial. Laney and Mika had to go through Toottee's dresser for lipstick and blush. I flung open Toottee's aparador to air the Aghan throws and throw pillow cases.

Meanwhile, Oscar Pacis arrived from his Bauang, La Union, farm, and said, smilingly, on seeing all sorts of crochet products strewn in his living and dining rooms: "Am I in the right house?"

This morning, in Mandaluyong City, Toottee and I sat down for coffee to recall how the crochet project got started. No thanks to Typhoon Pepeng.

She said, "We practice transparency. This is not my one-woman show. The ladies involved run the project. They know how much is put in and how much they take home. They know the financial aspect because they do the purchasing themselves."

Toottee did a trial sales run at a Brent School Christmas bazaar. Sales were enough that she was able to give bonuses to the very active women in the project.

Not one to take credit, she said, "We have a self-sustaining project, but we will be remiss if we do not thank the original donors who started it all like Auring Bautista, her daughter Gemma, Prof. Victoria Rico Costina, Team Cafe, journalist Nonnette Bennett who has been supportive from Day One."

Toottee is studying the possibility of re-introducing other crafts like quilting in Baguio.

“What’s more,” Toottee said, “when the ladies of Benguet get their net profit, it’s
like they had invested in their own business, giving them fulfillment and adding to their self-worth.”

What wonderful things happen when women get together!

Photo by LAARNI ILAGAN

Pia on the Run

Whoever thought of the title for her annual fun run on March 13 at the SM Mall of Asia (do early birds or lumbering middle-aged women get a prize?) ought to get a medal for hitting two birds with a pebble (can’t anger the animal rights activists).

Sen. Pia Cayetano, a stunner at five feet eight inches (towering by typical Pinay standards) met with the core of the Tigil Yosi media group (women in media who were at a seminar on smoking hazards in Boracay in 2008), led by Anna Leah Sarabia and Rina Jimenez David, at Café M near the Ayala Museum in Makati City yesterday. Health-conscious, she selected a lunch menu of lots of greens, chicken, fish and a beef stew cooked Asian fusion style. And she concentrated on the salads.

In a few words, Pia is sincere. She’s genuinely interested with the concerns of women from various parts of the country and appreciated that people like lawyer Golly Ramos flew in from Cebu, I took the bus from Baguio the day before, a young Manila Bulletin reporter came from Davao.

She was moved to learn that the former mudslide evacuees of Santo Niño in Ambassador, Tublay, Benguet, have a passable but rough road leading to their barangay and were receiving not much help from the provincial government. The men are clearing 15 road cuts; the women prepare their meals. The local Department and Social Welfare and Development unit could only give them a sack of rice. The Department of Public Works and Highways is nowhere to be found because of the election ban on public works. It’s the women again who find ways and means.

Pia’s awareness of women’s issues stems from firsthand experience as a daughter, mother who lost an infant son, wife, legislator. When she goes on the Senate floor to talk about breastfeeding, she hears snickering from the gallery. Her august colleagues (male, of course) taunt her by saying, “Nag be-breastfeed din kami.”

If she didn’t have a brother in the Senate to update her, she’d be out of the loop because at post-sessions, the male senators regroup in lounges and bars while she, a mother of two, has to return home to oversee her daughters’ well-being and progress in school work.

So Run with Pia because you’ll also be running for causes close to her heart: breast and cervical cancer, women’s livelihood projects, violence against women. In everything, she said, a woman is in it. Whether it’s climate change or allocation of barangay funds, women are involved.

Follow Sen. Pia Cayetano at www.mydailyrace.com or visit her website at www.senatorpiacayetano.com

Pia on Porn

From the office of Sen. Pia Cayetano comes this statement regarding the whole brouhaha about sex, lies and videotapes:

Senator Cayetano appealed to the public to refrain from
downloading, watching, sharing or purchasing electronic files and CD
copies of the controversial sex videos of Dr. Hayden Kho with several
celebrities that are circulating on the Internet and mobile
phones, and sold openly or covertly in pirated video stores.

Instead of further fanning the controversy, Cayetano urged the
media to help focus public attention to proposed solutions seeking to
deter and outlaw video voyeurism, and help raise people’s awareness on
women’s rights and privacy issues.

She is the principal author of Senate Bill No. 3267, the proposed
Anti-Video Voyeurism Act of 2009.,

“By watching and spreading these materials to others, we are
not helping address the problem but are in fact contributing
to it,” Cayetano, who is chair of the Senate committee on
social justice, said

“Bear in mind that the women victims are violated all over every time these videos are played and made a spectacle in our computers and mobile phones, or in our homes and places of work,” she added. “Do your part, don’t watch these videos. Otherwise we, in effect, become victimizers ourselves like Dr. Kho and his ilk.”

She has refrained from watching the videos and has encouraged her staff and friends to do the same as a way of showing respect, not only to the victims, but for all women in general.

A prolific blogger, she posted an entry on her blog, www.mydailyrace.com tackling the basic rights of women in light of the controversy created by the sex scandal videos.

In her May 23 blog entry, Cayetano listed the various forms of violence and remedies available to victims under Republic Act 9262, also known as the Anti-violence against Women and Children Act of 2004.

“This scandal is ugly and unfortunate, but it also opens our eyes as to how some people would shamelessly go to extreme measures of humiliating a woman and violating her rights with the use of modern technology and the internet.”

“We should focus on the unlawful act and not the content of the video. We trivialize the damage done to those women by watching these videos.”

She advised those who have already downloaded the sex scandal videos from file sharing sites to voluntary delete the same from their hard disks and mobile phones.

Pia Cayetano’s Cause

Through the wonders of Skype technology, Sen. Pia Cayetano was able to address the participants of the seminar on women, media and tobacco in Boracay from her house in Metro Manila and ask them to support her proposed Senate bills that face down the powerful tobacco industry.
Among other features, the bills recommend a graphic health warning, a photograph showing the gruesome ill effects of smoking on the body. This photo will occupy 60 percent of the cigarette pack and is meant to discourage smoking. It is found to be more effective than the small textual warning at the bottom of the pack and can be understood even by illiterates in farflung places that are still be reached by tobacco products.
Sen Cayetano bemoaned there is widespread ignorance of smoking’s consequences. She remembered joining a fun run in San Pablo, Laguna, and espying along the route a young father holding his toddler in one arm and a lighted cigarette on the same hand. Heedlessly he exhaled smoke that also shrouded the child. She found it ironic that there she was enjoying her rights to health and clean air of the countryside while this father imperiled his child’s health.Talk about irresponsible parenthood! Upper photo shows the senator on screen. Lower photo shows some of the participants. Photos by Sinag de Leon-Amado