During her junior year at the Universidad de Zamboanga (UZ), nursing student Mirza Guldam was asked to wear a short-sleeved white frock and nurses' cap as she prepared for hands-on training at the hospital owned by her school in Zamboanga City.

This was all seemingly standard procedure, except for what turned out to be a much deeper problem.

Guldam, along with half of her batchmates, were Muslim women and by being asked to wear something "standard", they were in fact being forced to violate the teachings of Islam by exposing more skin than was allowed under their religion. Worse, they were not allowed to wear their sacred veils, the "hijab."

"It is very painful. On my part, it was the first time I removed my veil and every time I go to duty, I feel a burden in my heart, there is also fear, like we are being deprived of our right to use our veil. We cannot perform our skills very well in nursing because we are not used to remove our veils and interact with those patients, so there’s a lot of pain in our hearts," Guldam said, recalling the incident last year.

Now a graduating nursing student, Guldam said the trauma of being forced to take off her hijab is still fresh in her mind.

There are reportedly no mechanisms to penalize discriminatory practices against religious and ethnic groups, and incident reports or complaints are few. "[As for] official documents, we have not received any formal complaints, but there might be some cases that these are not documented," said Datu Tahir Sinsuat Lidasan, Jr., Director of the Bureau of External Relations of the Office of Muslim Affairs (OMA).

He added that the closest body monitoring instances of discrimination is the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), which takes formal complaints such as warrantless arrests of Muslims who are automatically suspected to being behind bombings or kidnappings. The OMA, meanwhile, provides legal assistance to Muslims who were victims of human rights violations.

Congress

AMIN Party List Rep. Mujiv Hataman along with his colleagues Algamar Latiph and Raissa Jajurie, drafted the Anti-Discrimination Bill (House Bill No. 3012), which penalizes discriminatory acts such refusing to provide employment, education, delivery of goods and services, as well as accommodation based on religious or ethnic biases.

Should the bill be passed into law, the CHR, OMA and the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), will be tasked to prevent or deter acts of discrimination and "to provide the procedures for resolution, settlement, or prosecution of acts of discrimination." It also calls for the creation of an Equal Opportunity Committee to be established in every agency.

The bill punishes those found guilty with jail terms of 30 days to up to six months and fines of P10,000 to P100,000 depending on the gravity of the offense.

House Bill 3012 passed the third reading in Congress on November 17 last year. Sen. Manuel Villar (Senate Bill 2888) and Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV (Senate Bill 2001) filed these with the Senate Cultural Communities Committee headed by Sen. Jamby Madrigal, who said that a public hearing will be conducted on the three bills "at the soonest possible time" and that the bills will be consolidated.

"There is a need for a policy that will define and criminalize discrimination of persons based on religious belief and ethnic origin. I support the bill. However, as committee chairperson, we will have to hear the opinion of those who oppose the bill as part of the legislative process," she said.

According to Madrigal, strong provisions of the bill include the fact that it defines, specifies, and penalizes discrimination, and that it provides equal opportunities for all, whether Moro, Muslim, or indigenous people.

Jukuy pointed out that the struggle to remove prejudice, a product of ignorance and misinformation, cannot be cured by the Anti-Discrimination Bill alone. "It cannot be done overnight, it cannot be cured by a simple Anti-Discrimination Bill," she said. "But then, if we don't start with [the bill], where will we start?"

Understanding Islam

Warina Jukuy, a peace advocate and member of the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA), explains that the hijab is an integral part of a Muslim woman's life.

"For Muslims, excepting the face, and the hands, all are considered private. If you compel us to take off our hijab, and expose our hair, it is tantamount to exposing our private parts. To put it bluntly, you are asking us to take off our unmentionables, our panties. That is how grave it is, with the hijab, so I think any reasonable person would really understand if it can only be explained that way, the impact of taking off their veil," she said.

Upon reaching puberty, Muslim women wear veils and clothing that cover all body parts except the face, hands, and feet as an act of virtue and modesty, especially in the presence of other males beyond family members. Islam teachings pervade all aspects of a Muslim's life, and in the case of women, conforming to the Islamic dress code is one of the ways that they can follow Allah's teachings.

However, some of the hospitals reasoned that the veil was dirty and could become a vehicle to transmit microorganisms to patients. It would also not conform to the standard nurse's cap and uniform.

Further, Guldam said that, mostly out of ignorance about their religion than anything else, Clinical Instructors (CI) discouraged the wearing of hijab because patients would allegedly become scared or traumatized when they see some of the nurses wearing veils since they would instantly think of terrorists.

Fearing for their grades or being too shy to question the policy, some Muslim students took to bringing along spare hijabs, just to prove it was clean. Some even dropped out from nursing duty in hospitals that disallowed them from wearing their veils. Gamson Quiano, Vice President of the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and a senior Radiologic Technology student, said even Muslim students taking up dentistry, hotel and restaurant management, and medical technology were affected by the no-hijab policy.

Campaign

The MSA, as well as a group of lawyers led by Jukuy, set up a "Hijab Forum" in April 2008 to dispel myths about the hijab like its alleged dirtiness or the idea that patients would be traumatized when seeing the hijab-wearing nurses.

"In fact, Florence Nightingale also wore a veil, and long sleeves, and [a gown] right up to the soles of her feet. So the principle here of nursing is not about the dress code, it is about nurturing. If you can work as efficiently as you can with the hijab, then why take it off?" Jukuy argued.

The forum was attended by various students from the city's schools like Ateneo de Zamboanga, but only a handful of hospital administrators and school officials came. The group made a resolution upholding the right to wear hijab and submitted it to Zamboanga 1st District Rep. Maria Isabelle Climaco, who has yet to respond.

In July last year, the group wrote a flurry of letters to Zamboanga City hospitals and schools decrying fallacies about the hijab and questioning the no-hijab policy. The group feverishly worked to enlighten hospital and school administrations, as well as Muslim students, that the hijab was not simply a fashion choice, but an "inalienable and substantive right" to practice their religion.

On August 26, 2008, Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Officer-in-Charge Dr. Nona S. Ricafort issued a memorandum directing all higher education institutions (HEIs) to give "utmost respect and consideration" to concerned Muslim nursing students on wearing the hijab "provided that infection control and aseptic techniques are observed." The memo was circulated by CHED Region 9 (Zamboanga Peninsula) on September 9, 2008.

Universidad de Zamboanga, whose president is a Muslim, immediately allowed nursing students to wear their veils at the school-owned University de Zamboanga Hospital. The Zamboanga City Medical Center (formerly the Zamboanga General Hospital), meanwhile, allowed nurses to wear hijab in certain areas except in the Operating Room and Delivery Room.

However, despite the CHED Memo and pressure from student organizations and concerned groups, most other schools and hospitals in the city still do not allow the wearing of hijab, including the Western Mindanao State University, the Ciudad Medical Center, Camp Navarro General Hospital, Brent Hospital and Colleges, and the Southern Command hospital, among others.

As a small concession, some of these schools allowed nursing students to go on community duty instead of hospital duty, where they are not allowed to wear their veils.

Other forms of discrimination

Professionals like Samira Gutoc, a freelance journalist and co-founder of the Young Moro Professionals Network (YMPN), attest that the hijab prejudice and other biases are not confined to schools, but to the workplace and normal daily routines.

"After college, I wanted to apply for a broadcasting career, so I was wearing my veil, and I applied to all broadcasting companies and other major companies in Metro Manila. Most of them asked if I could remove my veil," Gutoc said.

Even in taking cabs, "Sometimes it takes you longer and I have to ask friends to wave a taxi for me," she continued.

The YMPN, a network of professionals around the world, monitors and collects incident reports of discrimination against members of the Muslim community.

"Most of the incidents that are shared to us are from job applicants in Metro Manila. The incidents are students who cannot get into a dormitory because they are Muslims, and then job applicants who have to change their names.

She added that some Muslims are constrained from practicing their religion in the workplace because they sometimes cannot observe religious holidays and they do not have access to public prayer areas or they cannot pray five times a day, an Islamic practice. They also do not have access to restaurants or places serving halal meals, which consist of meat that should have been cut by a Muslim person invoking the name of God using a knife that should not have touched pork.

Gutoc also said that the slow-moving proposal to construct a mosque in UP Diliman, a center for academic and religious freedom, is another instance where Muslims are alienated.

UP student regent Shahana Abdulwahid, however, clarified that the mosque construction at the Diliman campus was delayed mainly because of the lack of funds and the need to comply with certain legal requirements ordered by the Department of Justice (DOJ), which had issued a document saying that the University cannot prohibit the construction of a mosque since other churches are present in the campus.

She admitted, however, that one of the "incidental concerns" of the university was that "suspicious elements" would enter the campus should the mosque be constructed. Abdulwahid said, however, that the UP Diliman Muslim Students Association is working hard to obtain future funding for the mosque.

Some Muslims also find finding homes difficult at times. Tarhata Sumayan-Mapandi, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority Director in Lanao del Sur, tried to buy a house in a Cagayan de Oro subdivision on October 6, 2006, but was turned away by a real estate agent from Gran Europa La Buena Vida II allegedly because she was a Muslim. The real estate agent reportedly told her to ask another person, a Christian, to buy the house for her instead. Mapandi asked the management to explain this policy, but was not entertained.

Two years later, on October 23, 2008, Mapandi and her sister, upon inquiring about available Johndorf Ventures units, were told by a sales agent at a housing fair at Limketkai Mall in Cagayan de Oro that units were closed. However, when the two asked their brother-in-law to inquire about the same housing units, he was readily accommodated.

'Stereotypes'

Media organizations are partly to blame for these prejudices. A telling instance was when a tabloid, Bulgar ran a story in its August 1, 1992 issue implying that Muslims worshipped pigs as their god, the reason why they refused to eat pork and other animals especially during Ramadan.

The issue reached the Supreme Court (SC), but was dismissed in an SC decision dated January 28, 2003, which stated that the report did not constitute libel because it did not name specific persons, clearing publishers of all criminal liability.

However, in his dissenting opinion, SC Justice Antonio Carpio argued that the issue was not libel but rather what constitutes protected speech. The Bulgar report, Carpio said, was humiliating, and disrespected the dignity and constitutionally-protected human rights of the Muslims.

Carpio supported the claim of the private respondents that the newspaper article "which asserts that Muslims worship the pig as their god, was published with intent to humiliate and disparage Muslims and cast insult on Islam as a religion in this country."

The Anak Mindanao Party-List (AMIN) cited a 2005 Pulse Asia survey which showed that 55% of respondents think that Muslims "are more prone to run amok", 47% think that they are terrorists or extremists. The study concluded that "a considerable percentage of Filipinos (33% to 39%) are biased against Muslims." -- with reports from Fharhana Abdurahim in Zamboanga City (abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak)

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