University of Cebu

UC-Banilad campus recently playe host to the Asian Freedom Film Festival with the theme “Women and Migration in the ASEAN,” and invoked advocacy to women migrants on December 10, 11 and 12, 2006.

The UC Banilad Campus provided the apt locale for the event, rendering appropriate seating and hospitality for the expected delegates, some of whom were part of the Second ASEAN Civil Society Conference, along with the UC enrollees. Select UC students made fine facilitators of the entry, while the campus buckled up with the security, amid the high profile demands raised by the occasion.

On its first day, the films shown focused on Migration and Burma. “Leave Home to Survive” and “Child Laborers” were moving pictures of the plight of Burmese migrant workers and child laborers. “Don’t Fence Me In: Major Mary and the Karen Refugees of Burma” dwelled on the Burmese struggle for self-determination and the very survival of the Karen people - one of the country’s largest ethnic groups ? whose spirit and will to live are the only defenses against political and historical forces that hound their very existence. A discussion followed the viewing.

The second screening day highlighted 11 brief films on Women and Migration in Southeast Asia. “BATAM,” the first short film shown, is a-propos with the remarkable transformation of the lives of two females: Wati and Dewi. The first one is a factory worker and the other, a working girl. Both are based in Batam, an island in Indonesia. Their occupations as factory worker and commercial sex worker, respectively, are the official and unofficial, albeit infinitesimal foundations of the country’s economy. The film too spotlights women migrant workers from the Philippines, women taking up a greater number of migrant workers and, work as the most decisive ground for overseas resettlement.

Some of the other short films were: “House of Despair, Park of Hope,” which tells of the perils of Indonesian workers in Hong Kong; “Suicide Jumpers: Modern-day Heroes in a Modern-day War,” speaks in motion of the quandary of Filipinos- who were mostly domestic helpers- frantic to reach the Lebanon evacuation center by all means and against all odds, during the August 2006 shower of explosives; while “Sowing Seeds” portrays the Yamataga wives, the Asian women migrant workers in Japan married to Japanese men, shown in a different light. Discussions were then centered on Women Migration and on Women migrant workers in specific context: In situations of conflict and undocumented migrant workers.

On the third day, “Kunyang” (Winning Story 1 by Vivian Limpin (Philippines), “Uprooted” (USA/ Phil.), “Temporary Loss of Consciousness” (India/ Pakistan/ Bangladesh), “Silent Cries: The Untold Stories of Migrant Workers in Malaysia” were shown. Some films shown on the second day were also reviewed. After the short films’ presentations, there was a sharing from Women migrant Workers. The event was concluded by cocktails after the awarding of Plaques to the Winners of Asian Freedom Film Festival 2006.

The event was organized by Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA) and Pusat Komas, in cooperation with Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) Cebu, UC-Banilad, and supported by the South East Asian Committee for Advocacy (SEACA). Although some expected guests were unable to grace the event due to the postponement of the ASEAN summit, a ray of sanguinity still plays across the face of Dr. Agapito Pino, Jr., Administrative Director of UC-Banilad.

“An Opportunity to educate students through the medium of film is something we could not allow to pass,” states the dministrator in a most positive tone. True enough, ASEAN or no ASEAN, every UC student in Banilad campus could and must have effortlessly picked up a lesson or two from the multifaceted films.