Of the 5,361 names submitted by the Independent Decommissioning Body (IDB) from 118th Base Command – Camp Badre to the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, Reconciliation and Unity (OPAPRU) for the second phase of decommissioning, all but one name belongs to a female combatant.
Her name is Samra Suleik. She is a 51-year-old midwife with five children: three daughters and two sons. She is the grandmother of Al-Heeshan Suleik, the firstborn of her 23-year-old eldest child. She is the widow of Abdulrajak Manyal Suleik, then the operational commander of 108th Base Command.
Samra remembers the day her husband died. She recalls that it happened on a Friday, the afternoon of April 18, 2008. Her husband was driving a Nissan Urvan from Midsayap, North Cotabato going to Pikit, also in North Cotabato. There was only supposedly about 21km of distance between the two places. But on that day, the road seemed too narrow and longer that the Nissan Urvan collided with a motorcycle carrying two soldiers as passengers in front of Takipan North Elementary School.
Nobody survived the accident. Shattered Samra was told to wait in their home in Kitango, Maguindanao. She was three months pregnant with their youngest, Jaidalyn.
“My mind immediately asked how our family is going to survive. Who will provide for us? How will I provide for the kids? They were so young and I still had a baby coming. I kept all those worries to myself even if I was barely holding on to my sanity,” the newly widowed mother of five lamented.
Now, Jaidalyn is 13 years old and is studying to memorize the Qur’an. Her two other daughters, Nor-Jannah and Nor-Jainnah, are studying in General Santos City and Tacurong City, respectively, to become midwives like their mother. Nor-Jainnah also passed the NAPOLCOM Special Qualifying Eligibility Examination she took last May 2022. This means she will be able to train as part of an integration program of the Philippine National Police. Her two sons, Al-Hammad and Nor-Jaimin, are in Senior High School.
Outside their home, Samra is fondly called “Ate Sam” by her fellow combatants and patients. She is the cousin and one of the closest aids of Abdulwahid Tondok, the Chief Commander of 118th Base Command. For the past ten years, she trails along with the commander wherever he goes. She treats his wounded, sometimes dying, fellow combatants. For them, her hands spell the difference between life and death.
From a heartbeat making its way into the world to the demise of a body pierced by bullets, Samra has seen it all. So she hopes, because knows of the forgiving life that connects the beginning to the end. Here are Samra’s hopes for her children.
She hopes that Nor-Jannah would someday go back to school to finish her studies and, most importantly, become the mother little Al-Heeshan needs. She hopes for Nor-Jainnah to pass the next steps of her exam to officially become a part of the Philippine National Police. She hopes that Al-Hammad and Nor-Jaimin would have the will to finish their studies. She hopes for Jaidalyn to successfully memorize the Q’uran—all 604 pages of it containing 6,236 verses. And there is nothing more she wants for them as a family that to have a peaceful and dignified life.
Let it be known that the lone woman in the long list of decommissioned combatants from 118th Base Command was able to do it all. Samra Suleik did it all and achieved so much more in the process. Yes, she is a woman, a Moro, a widow, and a mother at that. She wants everyone to know that that means nobody can fuck with her.
The ‘Access to Legal Identity and Social Services for Decommissioned Combatants’ (ALIAS DC) is a civil registration project funded by the European Union in the Philippines, Australia in The Philippines, and The Asia Foundation, and is implemented by IDEALS in partnership with the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, Reconciliation and Unity (OPAPRU), Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Joint Task Forces on Camp Transformation (JTFCT), at Task Force for Decommissioned Combatants and their Communities (TFDCC).
The project supports the Bangsamoro peace process by providing decommissioned combatants and their families with birth certificates and facilitating access to socioeconomic and development programs.
