Karina Constantino David
Credit to Author: MA. ISABEL ONGPIN| Date: Thu, 16 May 2019 17:55:19 +0000
KARINA Constantino David had a circle of friends, classmates, colleagues from schooldays and beyond, from the many facets of her life — UP student, UP faculty member, community worker, anti-dictatorship militant, guitar-playing member of the Inang Laya singing duo and much more, unbeknown to me and to many. She was a woman of many parts.
I met her and knew her when she had done all of the above, though it was never behind her. She was still at it. That was more than 30 years ago when I would join the women’s marches against the dictatorship, especially after the assassination of Benigno Aquino Jr.
She always had a special part in the proceedings of the protest demonstrations by virtue of the musical interludes she gave (with Becky Abraham, the other half of Inang Laya). Actually, rather than musical interludes, their performances were more like compelling musical chapters in wonderful Filipino touching on relevant political issues, dwelling on human questions and responses, expressing patriotism, courage to struggle, and faith in humanity and the Filipino.
I say I met her then but really, she did not meet me. I was just part of the crowd, in awe of the activist musical duo that propelled us into marching for freedom, equality, justice.
Karina joined the first government after the 1986 regime change as undersecretary at the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DWSD). She eventually resigned for more intensive community work, doing community mortgage buyouts of land for informal settlers within the city, fighting for women’s rights and against domestic violence, all of these part of the everyday events of the communities she was involved in as she steered them towards a better standard of living with dignity and responsibility. This was real grassroots development work that educated the communities.
It was only later when the new Constitution of 1987 provided for marginalized members of society the opportunity to form party-lists and vie for legislative seats, that I really, truly met her. We became members of Abanse Pinay, the women’s party, campaigning for places in Congress.
In Abanse Pinay, she was the strategist that together with other women’s groups put up a women’s party to participate in the 1998 elections. A convention of women’s groups was organized where the candidates were chosen and a campaign strategy was formulated and carried out. Democracy in action. She had a major role in this endeavor.
For Abanse Pinay, we hit the campaign trail from Luzon to Mindanao through rain, heat, dust, crowds and assorted venues, traveling by land and air. I remember it as a long, hot summer that featured a drought. Before and after speeches in front of varied crowds of women, from teachers to farmers, from medical personnel to market vendors, from housewives to grandmothers, to businesswomen and professionals, we campaigners really got to interact and know each other. Together we met all kinds of people from the sane to the not-so-sane, the ignorant and the demanding, the receptive audiences and the debaters of what should be done or the defenders of the status quo. When it came to answering demanding questions, we would put Karina up front to answer them. For someone who did not suffer fools gladly, she did so in that campaign. Once in Iloilo, with a particularly irrational and persistent questioner coming in long after the events of the day and just as we were about to retire, we just melted away into our rooms and left Karina to take care of the answers we couldn’t give. She soldiered on with no recriminations actually satisfying the questioner enough.
Karina was the veteran teacher among us who would critique the way we gave our speeches. Particularly of me, who had to speak in Filipino before crowds. After I gave my very first speech, she chided me for never looking at the audience and just reading away. So, I learned to look them in the eye despite my awkward Filipino and tried to improve. I learned to say “datapwat” and “bagamat” after that exposure.
At the end of the day, bone-tired, hungry, longing for airconditoning and a nice bed, we could forget those wants by going through the events of the day with her and learning something. Karina always found humor and lessons in what happened during the day and personally demonstrated why things were funny, making us laugh and laugh. Those were the cathartic moments of a campaign in the countryside, meeting conservative women in the north, militant women in the south and nonplussed local officials who were facing women demanding entry to public office.
Abanse Pinay won one seat in that election. And it fulfilled its duty in Congress with our representative Pat Sarenas, who served two terms. It is such a shame that the party-list system has since been gamed by those who are not marginalized but part of the political and social establishment.
Karina went on to join government, resigned, then rejoined government as head of the Civil Service Commission during the Arroyo administration. Indeed, she had a record of public service that continued with the succeeding administration as a member of the Presidential Management Staff technical working committee and as a trustee of the GSIS.
In all these positions, she showed exceptional executive ability coupled with vision and human compassion.
The Abanse Pinay campaign bonded us and together with other women of the same milieu, we became a core group of friends who had time to see each other and discuss the issues of the day as well as our personal concerns regularly. These were very satisfying sessions of learning and discussing.
Among us, she was the techie. The first one to understand and use the smartphone, the one who could dominate a computer to her own purposes, the one who could handle a website as the webmaster. Using the latest electronic devices, she could communicate easily and quickly with whoever or whatever. She too was the one who could in a few words convey how important it was to understand others and see where they were coming from in specific situations.
In all of the above, family was her rock and her shelter. Children and grandchildren were individuals to know and understand and enjoy and set free to be themselves. In her final years as her health deteriorated, serenity came over her. Yet she continued to do more than expected.
We all know we are mortal but when mortality comes near us, we react in anger or sorrow, in denial or resignation, or all of it by turns or simultaneously. It all came together for me when Karina suddenly went, leaving a void that will never be filled in whatever years I have left. But then again there are the memories that mean a lot, enough for a lifetime.
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