Mindanao Nuns: Bending with the Storm, Standing Firm

Twenty years after a group of Catholic nuns in Mindanao bonded together to fight the injustice and indignities committed by the State against the people, the conditions still remain, reaffirming the justness of the cause of these women religious. “Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo looms like a pharaoh, and her ‘hardened heart’ will continue to isolate her from the people,” they say.

By ROLANDO PINSOY
Bulatlat.com Mindanao Bureau

“In union with God and in fidelity to the mission of Jesus, we commit ourselves particularly to the poor, deprived, with the oppressed and of God's creation in the struggle to transform dehumanizing structures of our society.”

-- Samin Constitution and by-laws

DAVAO CITY – It was the early ‘80s, a time not much different from the present. Corruption, highlighted by the prevalence of cronies and Imelda Marcos’s profligate ways, was rampant. Crime was bedeviling the urban centers. Violations of human rights and civil liberties, both in the cities and the countryside, were the order of the day. People disappeared without a trace, many of them turning up dead in creeks and abandoned lots.

The Marcos regime was becoming increasingly isolated. The mainstream political opposition found a symbol in Ninoy Aquino, who would be assassinated that same year. In spite of that, it was riven with internal conflicts. Thus, the progressive sector became the people’s voice.

In Mindanao, as they were bringing the Church closer to the people, the nuns became witnesses to different forms of injustices and discriminations against the marginalized sectors of the society. Their “preferential option for the poor” became not just a calling – it became a responsibility.

Amidst this political turmoil, the women religious were starting to be awakened. They became familiar faces in rallies and barricades during demolitions. They joined fact-finding missions on the atrocities by the military in the countryside. They immersed with the Lumads in Mindanao and worked in Moro communities. They established missions in these communities and supported the people’s struggle for their ancestral lands and for self-determination while, at the same time, respecting their culture.  

It was in this milieu that the Sisters’ Association (Samin) in Mindanao was born. In 1983, members of Samin, then known as the All-Sisters Mindanao Congress, held their first Congress and drafted its constitution. This week, Samin, which is based in this city, is celebrating its 20^th anniversary.

Sr. Esper Clapano, a member of the Missionaries of Assumption and a founding member and former chair of Samin, earlier recalled that the birth of Samin rode on the winds of change sweeping the country at that time. The conception of Samin was also a response to the Catholic Church’s Vatican II, which enjoined Church people to look out for the poor.

Not an easy birth

Samin’s birth had not been easy. The women religious had a difficult time formally bonding. For one, they were dissuaded by their bishops. They were ostracized by the conservatives in the Church. Worse, they were branded as subversives.

In a talk during Samin’s assembly in 1998, Sister Esper said: “In the early years of Samin, the sisters suffered a lot of suspicions and rejections. Samin is the first association of women religious that was initiated from the grassroots sisters. The Samin members accepted this consequence as part of their mission in solidarity with the poor, the marginalized and the oppressed.”

The sisters did not expect Samin to become what it is today, two decades after its founding. “Maybe because we are women. Women are flexible. We bend with the storm, but we continue to stand firm. Unlike those who are strong but do not bend -- they are the ones who break. It is a characteristic of women, aside from being nurturing. We bend with the storm, but we swim through the waves. But with a direction that is always clear. We have a vision, a direction, then we take action,” founding member Sr. Regina Pil RGS said in 2001.

Today, Samin has 301 members from about 36 different congregations. Samin takes pride in continuing its solidarity with the poor, with the exploited and marginalized sector, assisting them in their struggles for survival and justice.

Samin has been supporting the struggles of the Lumads, going to the frontlines of protest actions and joining fact-finding missions on military atrocities against indigenous peoples – the same advocacy they had been taking since their founding, which only goes to show that not much has changed in Philippine society.

Struggle within the Church

Aside from actively participating in the campaign against violence against children and women, the Samin sisters have also called for the transformation of the Church from within. Last year, Samin voiced its concern on the issues of sex scandals the Catholic Church was confronting.

Samin members are also deeply involved in the struggle of the working class. The nuns helped in convening the Church-Labor Solidarity Conference in response to the nationwide call for the increase in wages.

The sisters are at the forefront as well in promoting eco-feminism, putting into concrete action the role of women as nurturers and life-givers of the earth while resisting the greed of the government and capitalists that causes damage to the environment.

Samin, meanwhile, does not see these advocacies waning because, as Sr. Mary Antonietta Go, executive-secretary, put it, “the conditions that brought about the birth of Samin are still present. We cannot remain passive and remain in the comforts of our convents while our people are suffering.”

Sister Tonette says that the Filipino people continue to suffer. Injustice remains. Corruption is still prevalent. Violations of human rights and dignity are still common. “Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo looms like a pharaoh, and her ‘hardened heart’ will continue to isolate her from the people. The social and political plagues that she meets are consequences of her servitude to the country's elite and to foreign powers,” Sister Tonette says. Bulatlat.com Mindanao Bureau

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