CEDAW/C/PHI/5-6 including limited food supply, poor shelters and health and sanitation facilities, and lack of organized activities for children and adults.3 56. Women who are affected by the war against terrorism are unable to make their concerns heard because they are preoccupied with surviving the hardships brought on by the war or are not adequately represented in fora and panels. Moreover, the gender dimension of the conflict has rarely been raised, if ever, in peace negotiations and peace and development efforts. 57. A decade after the government negotiated peace with the Communist Party of the PhilippinesNew Peoples Army (CPP-NPA), dissident Communist armed groups were beginning to become active in many areas. Armed Communist groups were on the rise, from an estimated 7,670 in 1994 (but down from a high 25,000 in 1986) to 10,238 in 2001. Clashes between rebel groups and the military had resulted in civilian fatalities: about 63 in 1994, 191 in 2001 and 84 during the first semester of 2002 (Ferrer 2003). Crime Rate 58. The overall peace and order situation appeared to worsen in 1999, when the crime rate (propelled by “non-index crimes4”) rose to 110.5, before falling to 104.7 in 2000 and 98.8 in 2001 (NSCB 2003a). The increase in criminality in 1999 to 2001 could be traced to a jump in number of drug-related incidents, involving the arrest of 20,110 persons in 1999 and 18,367 in 2001, as compared to 2,722 arrests in 1998. Outside Mindanao, kidnapping for ransom (which was part of the “index crimes5”) appeared to have been on a decline. Military Clashes 59. Attempts of sections of the Philippine military to grab power, which occurred several times in the late 1980s to early 1990s, died down. That is, until 26 to 27 July 2003, when a group of junior military officers and enlisted men mutinied. Rumored and aborted coups, the continuing clashes between the military and rebel groups in Mindanao, terrorist bombings in Mindanao, and kidnapping for ransom by renegade groups have eroded investors’ and tourists’ confidence regarding the economic and political stability, compromising the attempts by government economic managers to lift the economy from the effects of the financial and economic crisis that hit the country in mid-1997. The peace and order problems have also caused the government to increase spending on military activities, which drained the government’s meager resources and adversely affected the delivery of vital services to the poor. The economy and poverty 60. The three presidencies covered by the period under review were committed to economic liberalization, macroeconomic stability, poverty alleviation or reduction, and people’s participation in governance. The Ramos presidency, in particular, placed equal emphasis on people empowerment and global competitiveness, with its associated market-oriented agenda of economic liberalization. After 1998, the Estrada and Arroyo administrations promoted the 3Based on a joint assessment of the Philippines’ National Economic and Development Authority and the United Nations Development Programme in 2000. 4 Non-index crimes are all types of crimes not considered as index crimes. 5 Index crimes are crimes which are sufficiently significant and regular to be meaningful and include the following: murder, physical injury, robbery, theft and rape. 28