By transforming individual behaviors, unhindered art and culture form an essential dimension for building a just and sustainable peace. Similarly, the participation of women in public life contributes new ways of doing things in a political world regulated at best by the male value system, and at worst by military methods, as in the Philippines.

In 1972, when the Philippines was placed under martial law by Ferdinand Marcos, I was one of the student activists rounded up, arrested, placed in detention centers and tortured by the military. Now, nearly thirty years after that personal encounter with violence, I thought I should not only tell my story but help reflect on how to exorcise the memory of torture, attain inner peace and move on to become an advocate of peace for others.

In the twenty years of the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines, there were many forces that claimed to promote peace. Even Marcos himself claimed it was because of the need for peace that he had to impose martial law in 1972. When he was deposed in 1986, those who deposed him declared to the whole world that that was the first time people ousted a military dictator without bloodshed.

But is the absence of armed confrontation the essence of peace?

There has been no real cessation of hostilities between government and political forces challenging the power of the state. The peaceful dismantling of military rule in 1986 therefore did not solve the basic problems which give rise to social unrest and violence in Philippine society.

Art towards inner peace

In the most solitary confines of detention when I had only the wall and the self to talk with, I fought desolation by keeping my mind at work. I imagined and wrote several stories to and of myself. I was re-inventing myself and began to discover there were other selves other than the one that was with me. Those other selves were not as bitter and resentful, even as they were rebellious and free.

The imagination and desire to be free led me to write poetry. To pass away time in our detention cell, some political prisoners bonded together to make greeting cards. This became a popular handicraft activity of political detainees. My favorite part in the making of the card was the writing of the dedication. This was when I began to discover the power of the written word.

It is this inner peace and strength that enabled me to simultaneously teach in the University, raise a family and make the connection with people who matter in the movement for freedom and democracy. Of course, not all prisoners can become poets. Not all persons who encounter violence turn to art and literature to give vent to their rage. The key however to the attainment of inner peace is really poetic. Here it must be underscored that the process is more important than the result. The use of the imagination is more significant than the output which is the poetry.

Sisterhood for a cause

In 1981, Marcos declared martial law to be over and, to prove this, he offered to hold elections. The mock election and the bravado at declaring a "new republic" was exposed in the opinion columns of some women writers. For taunting the regime and exposing the unrelenting bravado of the dictator, these women writers were not only fired from their jobs, they were also investigated by the military for treason and subversion.

The collective trauma experienced by these women writers led us to the founding of WOMEN, which meant Women Writers in Media Now. Collectively we explained how writing newspaper columns in the exercise of freedom of the press could not be considered treason. On the side however, we had to answer questions as to why there was a need for a separate organization of women writers.

The answer to this question was not clearly articulated by us in the discourse. However, as our activities became more interesting, we discovered it was not possible to disregard questions of gender and its role in social formation. As women, we realized we were bonding not only to collectively claim the freedom of expression for ourselves but also to expose the patriarchy that was the main structure of power of the dictatorship. The military that was running the country was composed mainly of men in uniform. And we were women, an underclass in an all-male military set-up. Perhaps as women, we were bringing to the fore the possibility of a totally different political dispensation. We were in search of a more compassionate political regime and we thought this was possible only with more gender-sensitive individuals in positions of power.

Peace pacts in the name of free expression

We helped form the Concerned Artists of the Philippines (CAP) in order to squarely address the issue of censorship in film and in the other arts. With the Concerned Artists of the Philippines (CAP), we discovered that freedom of expression is a primary issue without which all other efforts at promoting progress and development in the Philippines were meaningless. Freedom of expression and a free press were requisites to an open and free society. And only an open and free society can build peace and progress for its people.

Overall then, my personal narrative suggests three modes of action for building peace. First, inner peace for all individual advocates of peace. This inner peace must be worked at and solidly built on commitment and conviction. I believe only persons who have experienced this kind of inner peace can promote and appreciate the need for a genuine, just and lasting peace. Two, freedom and empowerment for the women. I think, women, more than men, have the power and capacity to chart new courses of action especially in political dispensations ruled mainly by men. Three, freedom of expression for all regardless of class, gender, ethnic affinity and political persuasion.

* This text is (with substantial cuts) a contribution to the workshop on "women and peace" organized by the Yin Yang (masculine-feminine) workshop of the Alliance for a responsible and united world shortly before the Hague international Conference on Peace (may 1999).

Lilia Quindoza Santiago (Philippines)

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Civil identity for women Elements of women's civil rights* In her argument for the construction of an equal civil identity that respects both sexes, Luce Irigaray declares that the development and application of women's civil rights is a necessary condition. She writes "Since centuries, men have been governing society. They have therefore defined laws as per their conception - aware or unaware, clear or obscure - of the city. They have organised human groups as per their needs or desires. The decline of the patriarchal organisation, the entry or return of women to public life calls for new management of civil life with regard to current necessities." Two different human groups exist in society: men and women. The pretext of the neutral individual, she says, cannot hold in the face of reality. Women are pregnant, men are not, women are veiled, men rarely, the bodies of women serve for prostitution and involuntary pornography, those of men infinitely less, etc. In the work circuit, this neutralisation of the sexes is equally impossible. It is as civil persons that women must obtain the right to work and to salary and not as men, taking into account certain unique problems: periods, pregnancy, the education of children, etc. Women do not have to either usurp or beg for a little place in patriarchal society by passing themselves off as half-successful complete men. They represent half the citizens of the world. They should logically obtain civil identity with the rights corresponding to this identity. Masculine resistance to the idea of women's civil rights is strong and linked to many factors: the necessity to re-think the division between politics and religion; the need to restore the balance of relations between rights and duties; the difficulty of admitting that women are persons who have attained majority who are not mere appendages of men; the current impossibility of imagining rights that are removed from the concept of equality. Rather than fighting blow by blow, the author suggests that politically active women propose modifications adapted to women individuals to the legislature: The right to human dignity, which signifies: no commercial utilisation of their body or of their image; valid representations of themselves in gestures, speech and images in all public spaces; no more exploitation of themselves by civil and religious powers (maternity). The right to human identity, i.e.: judicial law stating that virginity is part of the feminine identity that is not negotiable against money, that cannot be bartered by the family, State or religion; the right to maternity as part of the feminine identity (the woman will have the civil right to choose to be pregnant and as to the number of pregnancies). The mutual mother-child duties will be defined in the code, so that the mother can protect her child and be assisted in this function by the law. The respective duties of the mother and father should be defined differently. The women will have a civil right to defend their lives and those of their children, their homes, traditions, religion against any unilateral decision that comes from masculine rights. At the financial level: the celibate will not be penalised by taxation or any other charge; family allocations will be equal for each child; media like the television for which women pay the same taxes as men will be adapted by halves. The systems of linguistic exchange will be reworked to ensure right to equal exchange for women and men. Women will be equally represented in all civil or religious places of decision. * As proposed by Luce Irigarai in Rome, 8 April 1988, Preparation for the forum "The age of women", organised by women of the Italian Communist Party and the RETI publication.

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