Women of substance

Muslim doctor, Christian lawmaker join TVIRD in helping the poor of Siocon

While they have lived contrasting lives, they have found common
ground in helping people by pouring all their energies in their respective professions
despite the personal sacrifices they had to make.

Tomboc is the lone woman member of the Siocon legislative house.
Her being a widow and a single parent to four children has not stopped her from
being one of the town’s most prolific authors of laws, specifically on
health and women’s issues. The passing of her husband, a teacher like
her, six years ago made her discover that she can do more for others, not only
for her own offspring, but for her fellow Sioconians, especially women. After
a 16-year stint at a government school in Siocon and 7 years as human resources
head of the local government unit, she decided to join politics – a totally
new undertaking for her – shortly before the local and national elections
of May 2007.

But while she comes from a well-respected family in this town,
none of its members were politicians. Nevertheless, she emerged fifth out of
the ten elected Council members – quite a feat for a neophyte like her
in a field dominated by men, especially in this part of the Philippines.

As chair of the Council’s Committee on Women, Health
and Sanitation, Tomboc has organized women in the 26 barangays of her town.
She said 60% of the organization’s members have started the self-help
livelihood projects she initiated in cooperation with village chairs.

“The small capital that the women earned through our
assistance was used as capital for their livelihood projects,” the Christian
legislator explains. “In our coastal barangays for instance, the women
are now engaged in drying fish. We plan to market these dried fish to provinces
in Mindanao that do not have the kind of dried fish that we have in Siocon.
The all-Muslim women organization in Barangay Panabutan is now selling their
cassava chips in Zamboanga City using cassava seedlings that we distributed.”

She has also organized women in areas classified by the police
as “critical” – places where there are Muslim insurgent groups.
“The need for livelihood crosses party lines and ideologies,” she
stresses. “When I am in so-called ‘critical’ barangays we
only discuss livelihood opportunities, the health of women and their children’s
health. We do not even discuss politics because the 2010 elections are still
too far.”

Just few meters from the legislative house is the Municipal
Health Office, where Saribol, a Muslim from the Tausug tribe, holds court. Gentle
and soft-spoken, she is warm and friendly even to strangers. Patients easily
warm up to her as she intently listens to their health concerns. She has so
easily blended into this multi-ethnic community she works in within a span of
just ten months. It is no wonder, therefore, that Siocon townsfolk – Christians,
Muslims, Subanons or Kolibugans (Muslim-Subanon mix) – have come to like and
respect her.

Dr. Patti, as she is fondly called by everyone, shares that
she is a registered nurse who only became a doctor of medicine to fulfill the
long-time dream of her dying father who wanted to see his youngest daughter
cure people. “I wanted to make him happy before he closed his eyes and
left us,” she says of her father, who took care of her in her hometown
in Indanan, Sulu for the entire 23 years that her mother worked as chief nurse
at a hospital in Saudi Arabia. “That is why I left the nursing profession
and studied medicine.”

Saribol finished her physician’s course at the Ateneo
de Zamboanga University in 2006 and passed the government licensure examinations
the following year. She immediately started to work at the Zamboanga General
Hospital for her five-year specialization training in OB-Gynecology.

A year after her training, she got tired. She told her dean
that she wanted to work instead as a full-time doctor and chose Siocon, the
birthplace of her best friend, acting town Mayor Ceasar Soriano’s younger
sister, also a nurse now working in London.

Saribol has seven siblings, four of whom are also nurses. When
asked to join the medical mission conducted by the Community Relations and Development
Office (CreDO) in Sta. Maria, Saribol did not hesitate to go. She brought along
with her the members of her medical staff to assist the mission team brought
in by TVIRD.

“I joined the missions because they was an opportunity
to be of help to the less fortunate of my townmates,” she said. True enough,
with her around to assist the two TVIRD doctors, almost 800 people were able
to avail themselves of the health services during the missions.

Tomboc, for her part, says the missions gave her the venue
to reach out to her constituents and enabled her to further evaluate their needs
for legislation purposes. As an ardent advocate for women and children, she
has also met the Subanon with these groups in Canatuan, a mountain village in
this town that hosts TVIRD’s copper and zinc operations. Also a professed
environmentalist, she keeps an open mind on mining, so long as it is conducted
responsible manner.

“Life would be difficult without mining,” she argues.
“Everything we need, be it in the kitchen, in the hospital, and even in
church, needs products from mining. Without it, it would be like going back
to the stone age. And since we cannot do away with it, we simply have to do
it responsibly.”

She adds that she can afford to spend less time with the women
of Canatuan because TVIRD has done so well in promoting their welfare, particularly
in the areas of health and sanitation, education, and livelihood.

“They are really fortunate to have the company there.
I appreciate so much TVIRD’s Social Development and Management Plan for
the Subanons,” she says. “The company has excellent programs for
the women, the children, the youth and the community as a whole.”

Deep inside the lady legislator is still very much a mother
whose only dream in life is see her children have a good life of their own.
She just smiles when asked if she has plans to remarry. “My priorities
right now are my children and my constituents. It is difficult to live alone.
It is difficult to be both a mother and a father to your children. It is even
more difficult when they tell me that they miss their father. It reminds me
of the happy times we had together. But then, reality quickly sinks in, and
I as a single parent and an elected official have to be tough because they have
only me to depend on, and it is my sworn duty to serve my constituents.”

Meanwhile, Saribol is scheduled to wed her boyfriend, a Manila-based
police officer, this May. She says the wedding will cap a relationship bound
by love and not by tradition. Theirs will not an “arranged” marriage
as dictated by a centuries-old tradition. “There was courtship, followed
by a long engagement,” she says. “Of course, there will be dowry.
Andyan yan sa Kor’an.”(It is in the Qur’an).”

Dr. Patti plans to stay in Siocon with her husband-to-be who
has planned to be assigned to this town. She says they both like Siocon’s
serene and quiet atmosphere, which is quite relaxing after a hard day’s
work.

Councilor Tomboc and Dr. Saribol belong to different cultures
and traditions, but because of their selflessness and dedication to their chosen
professions, they have earned the respect of the people they serve. Tough but
caring, they are truly women of substance. (Lullie Micabalo)