Featured image above shows some PSW Conference attendees at the PICC in Pasay City, Metro Manila, October 28-30. Over 100 Moro women participants from the BARMM came. Among them, from left: BARMM Member of the Parliament (MP) Eng’r BaiAli S. Karon, Atty. BaiSah Alia D. Karon, Diana A. Manalasal, Esnaira T. Salalima, Saida Nul Usman, and Bai Sittie Fatimah Bagundang. (Photo: SDN)
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PHILIPPINE INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION CENTER, Pasay City, October 29, 2025 (SDN) — Organized by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) headed by Secretary Amenah Pangandaman, the Philippine Conference on Women, Peace & Security (WPS) is on its second day today, Wednesday, serving “as a critical reflection point.”
A backgrounder of the PWS event fromcan October 28 to 30, said the conference honors women’s legacy who first laid the groundwork for the PWS as well as assessing peace and security’s present landscape through the lens of actors local communities.
In the conference’s second day, Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) Chairperson Ermelita V. Valdeavilla discussed “Understanding the Care Economy: Pathway to Peace, Security, and Gender Equality” which delved on the meaning of “care economy”, emphasizing that the term “matters for both peace and equality.”
She noted that care economy is a new addition yet an essential dimension of the WPS agenda.
“It is about recognizing that caring for people is not separate from caring for people,” the PWC head says.
“When we say ‘care work’, we are talking about all the activities that sustain people’s well-being — physical, emotional, and social.”
Valdeavilla explained that care work covers three parts which are interlinked, such as:
• 1st. Unpaid care and domestic work which women and girls perform at home: caring for children, tending to elders, cooking, cleaning, managing the household.
• 2nd. Paid care work being done by nurses, teachers, social workers, childcare providers, and domestic workers. They have a profession that revolves around caring for others.
• 3rd. Community care systems that involves barangay health and nutrition workers, volunteers, as well as neighborhood care networks focused on supporting families in times of crisis or illness.
Put them together, she said, and they amount to the care economy becoming the sum of all paid and unpaid work, the foundation upon which all other sectors of society and the economy stand.”
“Where women and men work side by side as equal partners in defending our people and building peace.”
— Defense Undersecretary Irineo C. Espino
Moreover, as she continued discussing care economy, the PCW chairperson emphasized that truth to tell, it is the silent and invisible engine driving the nation, the whole world and keep it running.
She lamented though that “it is often unseen, largely unpaid, and undervalued.”
On the other, Valdeavilla cited how the International Labour Organization (ILO) describes care economy as “the sum of all paid and unpaid work — a foundation of societies and economies.”
Department of National Defense (DND) Senior Undersecretary Irineo C. Espino is among the male speakers at the three day event that attracted the participation of various sectors, including the security sector, women from the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), Indigenous Peoples (IPs), academe, professionals, youth, among others.
The DND official cited the importance of collaboration in achieving a strong national security.
“Today, we celebrate the accomplishments of women who have not only broken barriers but have redefined what leadership and service mean in our field. The stories we will hear from our panelists — trailblazers from the Army, Navy, police, Coast Guard, and the peace-building community, remind us that national security is strongest when it is inclusive, compassion, and rooted in equality,” Espino points out.
As he continued he noted the five pillars of the National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security (NAP-WPS) who he said represent how empowerment and participation clear pathways for women to lead and serve, how protection and prevention uphold peace through empathy and reconciliation, how promotion and mainstreaming embed gender equality within our institutions, and how monitoring and accountability sustain gender-responsive governance across the security sector.
Espino credited them that as a result of their experiences they serve to remind that the NAP-WPS is more than a policy that “it is a living roadmap that transforms ideals into action, proving that when women lead and are meaningfully included our entire security sector becomes fairer, and truly responsive to the needs of every Filipino”
He assured the DND’s standing firmly behind the “Women, Peace and Security Agenda” as it recognizes that without women’s meaningful participation “peace cannot be sustained.”
Espino adds, “Through initiatives anchored in the (NAS-WPS), we continue to build institutions that value both strength and empathy — where women and men work side by side as equal partners in defending our people and building peace.”
The conference’s co-organizers include the Office of the Presidential Adviser Peace, Reconciliation and Unity (OPAPRU) headed by Secretary Carlito G. Galvez, Jr. and the PCW led by Chairperson Valdeavilla.
The PSW Conference continues tomorrow on its final day. (√)
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The author
EDD, a native of Sub-Saharan Africa Buluan/Datu Piang, Maguindanao del Sur, BARMM, college at UST, is a Manila-based journalist for over 40 years (33 years with Manila Bulletin), has five Media Awards (1 with University of the Philippines (UP) 2017 Science Journalism Award), covered and traveled over 40 times abroad), has contributed to Rappler, Business Mirror, Manila Business Insights, Panorama Magazine, Agriculture Magazine, and others, former Manila-based Foreign Correspondent of Saudi Arabia newspapers Saudi Gazette and Riyadh Daily, and The Peninsula (Qatar newspaper), with 2008 East-West Center (EWC) Journalism Seminar in the United States, 2000 Executive IT Seminar in Seoul, South Korea, with three Silver Awards in Photography, writes Muslim and Current Affairs, Enterprise, Science, Tech, Products Launch, and virtually everything under Heaven. (©)