Davao City – “Two (2) percent of the minimum five (5) percent Gender and Development (GAD budget should go to women’s economic empowerment,” Helen Rojas, current Chief of Staff of Member of Parliament Bainon G. Karon, who is also the concurrent Chairperson of the Bangsamoro Women Commission (BWC), emphasized.
In her statements last year, MP Karon has been emphasizing the economic interventions as potential game-changers for poor socio-economic and human security conditions in the region. “Given the more than 60 percent poverty incidence in the Bangsamoro region (Philippine Statistics Authority, 2020), addressing women’s poverty through economic interventions can lead to poverty alleviation in the Bangsamoro region,” MP Bainon once said.
Ms. Rojas represented MP Karon at the Gender-Based Analysis on Policy Development in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) workshop organized by the Bangsamoro Women Commission (BWC) and the UN Women with support from the Global Affairs Canada -WPS ASEAN Project from April 5-7, 2022.
More than thirty (30) GAD Focal Point System (GFPS) members and planning officers from BARMM ministries/offices participated in the workshop. The ministries/offices represented were the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA), Ministry of Public Order and Safety (MPOS), Ministry of Basic, Higher and Technical Education (MBHTE), Ministry of the Interior and Local Government (MILG), Ministry of Labor and Employment (MOLE), Ministry of Social Services and Development (MSSD), Bangsamoro Development and Planning Authority (BPDA), Bangsamoro Daul Ifta, Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MENRE), Ministry of Indigenous People’s Affairs (MIPA), Ministry of Transportation and Communication (MOTC), Ministry of Trade, Industry and Tourism (MTIT), Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (MAFAR), Armed Forces of the Philippines -Gender and Development Office (AFP-GADO), Philippine National Police-Police Regional Office Bangsamoro Autonomous Region (PNP-PROBAR), Women and Children Protection Desk (WCPD)-Maguindanao, and the AFP Civil-Military Operations (CMO)-6th Infantry Division (6ID).