Sunstar Davao recently reported that every other day, a woman would seek for a barangay
protection order in Davao City to protect them from abusive husbands.
This is happening in just one barangay alone in this city of more than 180 barangays.
What about in scores of other
barangays, way up from Batanes down to Tawi-Tawi?
In the barangay where I served as a
member of its Lupon Tagapamayapa, I handled and mediated such cases too with regularity, though our village is relatively
small.
In these cases, I’ve encountered
several instances of women asking for protection orders from their husbands for maltreatment.
What is a protection order? How can it help women from further abuse by
their husbands?
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| Image Credit: Steven Meisel for Vogue Italia |
According to the UP-based Family and Community Healing Center, a Barangay Protection Order is an order issued
for the purpose of preventing further acts of violence against a woman or her child such as physical, sexual, and
psychological violence, as well as economic abuse as
specified by R.A. 9262.
Its purpose is to safeguard the
victim from further harm, minimize any disruption in the victim’s daily life, help
the victim to independently regain control over her life.
The site is one valuable source of
information for abused women to learn from and to protect them from cruel and
abusive husbands. It’ll guide them every
step of the way on what to do in case they encounter such a situation,
including how and where to file for a protection order.
When mediating, I was not supposed to get involved personally and should always maintain a very objective attitude
when settling family disputes. However,
in many instances, I can’t help from being biased in favor of the abused wife and
their children.
It’s good that there’s a law for
these women and children and we have the barangay government as the first line
of defense to protect them.
It is a must for all barangay councils in
the country to abide by the Magna Carta for Women and put up a desk dedicated
to handling cases of violence against women. These councils are supposed to set aside a
budget for the purpose.
The desk is tasked to give
assistance and psycho-social support to women and to draft plans on women
protection.
Most of the cases filed in the
barangays are psychological abuse by partners, extramarital affairs of
husbands, and physical abuse. There are
also cases of prostituting women and minors, inhumane condition for domestic
helpers, and forced organ donation.
To minimize the incidents of women being
victims of violence, the barangays need to have a program for empowering these
women through community discussions and lectures on how to deal with abusive
husbands. They should also be taught on how
to fend for themselves so that they’re not totally dependent on the income of
their spouses and partners.
Otherwise, the barangay halls will
always be full of abused women and children and the scarce resources of the
barangays stretched to the limits.
