BAGUIO CITY: Gender violence has decreased dramatically in the indigenous Cordillera region, at least as of November, when the tally was down to 437 complaints at this point of the year from 1,186 in 2024.
This was according to agencies that launched this year’s 18-Day Campaign to End Violence Against Women and Children on Tuesday (Nov 25).
The 2024 numbers actually represent the second spike in upland cases recorded by multiple agencies in a span of five years, following the 1,012 cases in 2022, according to Cecille Aguina-Basawil, DSWD Cordillera assistant director for operations.
She noted fluctuations in cases, which could either be attributed to pressures against reporting or actual offences investigated by authorities like the police’s women and children’s desks.
The data showed a slow uptrend during the lockdowns of 2020 (325 complaints) and 2021 (471) when children were quarantined at home because of the coronavirus pandemic, before it shot up in 2022. There was a huge drop to 874 by 2023 from the spike of 2022.
But the Cordillera offices of the Philippine National Police and the Department of Social Welfare and Development will need to sort through their data to identify offences that violated new regulations like the Safe Space Law (Republic Act 11313), said Ferdinand Gonzales, co-chair of the Cordillera Regional Gender and Development Committee (RGDevcom). He said current data showed “safe space” cases victimising women have been rising.
Edna Tabanda, a former Benguet town mayor, also said the tallies and responses must not ignore the cultural dynamic in the region, where some cases of rape and incest are punished by the community while keeping these incidents as confidential clan matters which are sometimes excluded from Cordillera statistics.
The RGDevcom says only 35 percent of the complaints went to court because investigations have not yet concluded, or some cases were settled among families.
A victim and survivors profile indicated that 48 per cent of complaints logged and probed in the highlands involve children and teens. It also says eight per cent of the victims were male.
The 18-day campaign ends on December 12. - Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN
