2 days Ago By N/A (Secretary Carlito G. Galvez, Jr.)
PEACE BY PEACE Excellence was the driving force when the Philippines successfully hosted the first ministerial-level International Conference on Women, Peace and Security last October 2024, a landmark event for our country in terms of advancing the global Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. As an offshoot of the historic event and the country’s quest for excellence to push forward the WPS agenda, the Philippines finally launched its Women, Peace and Security Center of Excellence on March 27. It is the first in Asia Pacific and the third of its kind in the world.
The Center will serve as a platform that will provide women with meaningful and substantive opportunities to participate, represent, and take the lead in the areas of peace and security, fields that have been traditionally male-dominated. At the launching, I underscored that “As nations throughout the world come together to move forward the women, peace and security agenda, the establishment of a WPS Center of Excellence in the Philippines is truly a major milestone not only for our country, but for the global wps agenda as a whole.” In her keynote message during the event, Budget and Management Secretary and Chairperson of the Center’s Advisory Council, Amenah Pangandaman, noted that through the center, “experts and stakeholders can share best practices, forge partnerships, and enhance our capacity to implement WPS initiatives” from the local to the international level.
Rosalyn Mesina, country programme coordinator of UN women Philippines, congratulated the collective effort for operationalizing the Center months after its announcement during the ICWPS, stressing that “this is the place for us to get together and multiply the initiatives.” It is worth noting that the Philippines is the first country in Asia to adopt its own National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security (NAPWPS) by virtue of Executive Order 865, series of 2010, making it a trailblazer in the international community’s concerted efforts to ensure and protect the rights and welfare of women. The NAPWPS, which is now in its fourth iteration, continues to evolve based on emerging realities on the ground.
The plan aims to equip, capacitate, and empower Filipino women in all their diverse and intersecting identities, highlighting that they are not just active participants but also prime movers in the country’s peace process. As part of the national government’s efforts to mainstream the NAPWPS, it has been localized in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao through the crafting of the BARMM Regional Action Plan on WPS, which is now in its third iteration. Through the Bangsamoro action plan, the NAPWPS has been contextualized based on pressing issues the region is facing such as local disputes (rido or family feuds), climate change, cyber threats to security, as well as the important role of women in the implementation of the normalization process.
Such initiatives to localize the NAPWPS reflect the country’s steadfast commitment to ensure that the lived realities of women in peace, or in situations of conflict are harmonized and integrated into all of the national government’s peace and development programs and policies. The four pillars of NAPWPS – empowerment and participation, protection and prevention, promotion and mainstreaming, and monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning – allow us to identify recurring and emerging challenges to the WPS Agenda and implement appropriate and even future-proofed strategies to address them. These experiences and lessons learned have served as the driving force of the national government to pursue excellence in pushing forward the WPS Agenda.
With the Cednter, we aim to open more windows of collaboration between and among various sectors of society. Using a whole-of-society approach, we are proud to say that the Philippines has already developed the capacity, and most of all, the mindset, to ensure that women across all sectors of society, whether they be in formal or informal spaces, will always have a place at the peace table. The Philippines, having been chosen as the home of the Center in the region, is a recognition of the major efforts our country has taken over the years to champion the well-being of our women.
With this Center, we are dedicating a space to build women’s leadership and underscore their meaningful participation in all phases of the peace process—from negotiations to implementation. The NAPWPS is about women’s active participation and leadership to ending conflict and ensuring that peace is sustained and lived in every community. The Center represents the best of Filipino women – talent, skills, and an ironclad determination to get things done.
They are now assuming leadership roles across all sectors not because they are expected to but because they now have the capacity to do so. The Center will translate the Philippines' Women, Peace, and Security Agenda from policy to practice, ensuring its tangible impact on the lives of Filipino women and the nation as a whole. This embodies the Philippines' commitment to growth and excellence, a vision we share with the global community.
It's a fitting culmination to National Women's Month. (Secretary Carlito G. Galvez, Jr.
, is the presidential adviser on peace, reconciliation and unity.).
