When was cecilia flores oebanda born

She knew it was only a matter of time before the soldiers discovered them. Before her eyes, she saw her trusted aide dissolve into a mass of blood. It was over in a matter of seconds. They had captured the famed Kumander Liway and every lock was worthy of an amulet.

Today the long tresses are gone. Yet the memories remain, even if Ma. Cecilia Flores Oebanda, 46, has come a long way since that fateful day in September , when the military overran her guerrilla camp in an eight-hour gunbattle in the mountainous interior of Hinobaan, part of the chain of six towns in Negros Occidental called CHICKS, where poverty and insurgency had long fed on each other. At her air-conditioned office, a long shelf displays a collection of plaques and pictures that portray a new life.

Oebanda is the president, executive director, and moving spirit behind the Visayan Forum. Set up in by former political prisoners and activists from the Visayas, the NGO evolved from discussing the plight of the four million Visayans in Metro Manila to focusing on internal migrants from the Visayan region and elsewhere, many of whom are female and employed as maids. Instead of organizing poor peasants and indigenous tribes that once filled up her days, Oebanda now devotes her time and energy to making visible a sector whose lowly, scattered, and hidden plight has kept them from the public eye.

Like other activists formerly in the underground who have directed their energies to NGOs, Oebanda sees this route as a valid way of working for social reforms. Her father was illiterate and her mother was sickly.

The second and eldest girl of 12 children, she started working at the age of five. I can still smell the stench of the garbage that clung to my clothes and my skin. But a combination of innate intelligence, diligent study, and swimming skills honed in the waters of the Bacolod wharf enabled the young girl to get out of the morass of poverty. I was and always am ready to die for the cause of fighting for the good of my country.

I see myself giving everything until the last drop of my blood to continue to fight against injustice. I am committed to pursue my work against injustice so that one day we have a free society.

Life in prison was very difficult. Recalling it all makes me realize the pain of being put into jail and the life that I experienced inside the cell. I gave birth to my two children while in prison. The hardest part of being inside was seeing my kids suffer and not able to grow up like normal children.

I remember asking my son what he wanted for Christmas and he replied that he wanted to see the world outside of the prison gates. In you were released from prison as a political dissident after the first democratic election in the Philippines for decades.

You then decided to establish the Visayan Forum Foundation, an organization that fights the horrors of human trafficking. Why did you establish the forum? I decided to establish the forum because I wanted to continue fighting against injustice in the Philippines.

I carried on with the vision and hope of giving women the opportunity to regain their life back. It has become my motivation in every rescue work we do. The rehabilitation and restoration of survivors is my driving force. We want abused sex workers to rediscover their life with a rekindled heart to dream again. The common reason why young people are victimized is because of the desire to bring their families out of poverty.

They are promised by their oppressors of a better life in exchange for work. In actuality they are subsequently locked in a house by their captives and do undesirable things for customers.

She is presently the Convenor of the Multi-Sectoral Network Against Trafficking in Persons, a national alliance of civil society, government and private groups that provides immediate response mechanisms in the prevention of trafficking, prosecution of offenders, and protection, rescue, recovery and reintegration of trafficked persons. Cecilia is a globally recognized human rights advocate and international expert on human trafficking, child labor and domestic work.

She was also conferred with the Caritas Prix Award from Caritas-Switzerland for her exemplary work in preventing child labor, prostitution and trafficking in poor communities.