In a world torn and threatened by wars, the work of advancing and sustaining peace is an urgent imperative. It is also extremely difficult. The issues are complex and often intractable. But through time, conscientious peace-makers have forged and collected the vital tools of conflict resolution and peacebuilding.

Women, in their gendered roles of settling disputes, healing, and nurturing, have risen to the task in many conflict-ridden communities. However, they have typically been left out of the decision-making processes that are crucial in ending wars and transforming the polity.

This is changing, albeit slowly. An exemplar in this shift is Miriam Coronel-Ferrer of the Philippines. Her impassioned engagement in political issues started in the late 1970s, when, as a student activist, she joined the resistance against martial rule. After the 1986 People Power Revolution that toppled the Marcos dictatorship, Coronel-Ferrer felt the need to find peaceful resolutions to the many armed conflicts that continued to divide the country.

With other women peacebuilders, Coronel-Ferrer initiated the drafting of the Philippines’ first National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security. The draft was eventually adopted by the government in 2010 as part of its commitment to the UN Security Council Resolution 1325. The landmark document urges all member states to ensure the protection of women’s rights during armed conflicts, mainstream the gender perspective in peace keeping and peace building, and advance the role of women as peacebuilders at all levels.

In the same year, she joined the government panel tasked to negotiate with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), subsequently becoming its chief negotiator in the latter part of 2012. In this role, she was consistently focused and determined, humble but tenacious, and empathetic and open to the position of others. Soon, she earned admiration and respect for her analytical command of the issues and skill as a negotiator.

In 2014, the Philippine government and MILF signed the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB), ushering the transition process that created the new Bangsamoro entity with a more empowered autonomous government. As crucially, the agreement also provided a process for the decommissioning of weapons and combatants and the transformation of conflict-affected areas into peaceful civilian communities.

The CAB has been described by international observers as a model for the integration of gender-responsive provisions and the inclusive participation of women and civil society organizations. Coronel-Ferrer sees this achievement more modestly: “There is no perfect agreement, but we make it more imperfect by leaving women out of the process.”

Coronel-Ferrer’s long-standing peace advocacy has gone beyond the country’s borders. She has since been invited to be part of international teams looking into the conflict situations in East Timor and Cambodia. She had provided support work for the peace programs of the Carter Center in its work on Sudan and Syria. In 2018, she became a member of the United Nations Standby Team of Senior Mediation Advisers, the only one from Southeast Asia so far. In her three years with the UN, she was deployed to support the mediation and preventive diplomacy work of UN missions in places like Afghanistan, Kosovo, Iraq, the Maldives, and the ASEAN region.

In 2020, Coronel-Ferrer co-founded the Southeast Asian Women Peace Mediators, a pioneering group of women engaged in convening safe spaces for dialogues and supporting mediation initiatives in countries like Myanmar and Afghanistan. Today, this is her main work. In addition, she also sits as member of the board of trustees or advisory bodies of several key conflict resolution initiatives such as the International Crisis Group, the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders, the Harvard University-based Negotiations Strategies Institute, and the Peace Treaty Initiative.

“Conflicts,” she wisely observes, “are best resolved not through the annihilation of one party, but by the mutual transformation of all players towards a common vision and shared responsibilities and accountability.”

In electing Miriam Coronel-Ferrer to receive the 2023 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes her deep, unwavering belief in the transformative power of non-violent strategies in peace building, her cool intelligence and courage in surmounting difficulties to convey the truth that it is through inclusion rather than division that peace can be won and sustained, and her unstinting devotion to the agenda of harnessing the power of women in creating a just and peaceful world.