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Agatha Retnosari: Keep Watching Over Members of Parliament

Agatha Retnosari, a legislator from the House of Representatives in East Java Province, was one of the participants at the MAMPU National Conference on Women Inspiring Change in 2015. The information she shared, which was based on her experiences as an activist prior to being elected a Member of Parliament, was valuable knowledge for the other conference participants. Meanwhile, for her, this conference expanded her network and gave her an insight into problems in other areas.

In Agatha’s opinion, networking is a must. This is especially so for women who are fighting to lift women out of poverty. This networking is not only among either Members of Parliament or CSOs, but in fact both. In one discussion, Agatha suggested that legislators should be more pro-active about speaking to the networks and students.

“Involve them so that they get their aspirations across,” she said.

She uses as an example her habit of keeping her friends in the network in East Java informed about the schedule of plenary sessions. Why is this important? Because plenary sessions are usually followed by meetings of commissions or agencies, so it’s a good time for those in the networks to approach the legislators.

“In East Java, almost all 100 legislators are present during plenary sessions,” she added. This does not mean that this MP from Surabaya was telling people to come and stage demonstrations at those times. However, choosing the right time is important for getting your aspirations across. It is possible that if you come at a different time, only certain Commissions are present and they may be ones which have nothing to do with the aspirations you want to tell the parliament about.

“It’s also important for MPs to understand that it does not mean they can simply ignore aspirations articulated by a particular network because what is being articulated has nothing to do with the Commission they belong to. They should tell the MPs at relevant commissions,” she added.

Watch, Watch, and Keep Watching

There are many programs created by the government that do not run well. Agatha suggested that her colleagues in her network keep a close watch over these programs. And it’s not only programs. Local Government Regulations, and even implementation of the Laws, can also be disastrous everywhere. This graduate in Environmental Technology from the Surabaya Institute of Technology gave an example of her own Commission, namely pertaining to health.

“BPJS, for example, is a super-body agency that can make its own rules, but the collection of data on poor people in many areas is still sloppy, and it needs to be watched closely otherwise the program will not reach the people who are in need. So then, how do we get the program to reach the less fortunate? Well, we have to ask for a breakthrough in policy. If we don’t watch it, it could just end up being a mess all over the place. This is what has actually happened and it has many people complaining about government programs,”  she pointed out.

It is important to watch over the legislators, because they are the most knowledgeable about the budget. Agatha added, “In East Java, it is relatively safe, because the KPI is active. The impressive women from KPI have an influence on the policies of government offices. The problem is in other areas, perhaps because people are reluctant, lazy or maybe even nobody knows how to approach the legislators.”

This is the area in which important to have programs such as MAMPU which provide reinforcement to the network. “In East Java, out of the 100 MPs, 17 are women, of which 8 are from PKB. This is because candidates were from Muslimat (Moslem women) in the District who had a strong social base. It is these MPs who should be watched over continuously by the network in their local area.”

Each MP has the opportunity to go into the field. There are three recessess per year. During each recess, an MP can visit six locations. These can be used as opportunities to make field visits to places where problems exist. However, perhaps not all MPs use this opportunity to look at the problems that constituents are experiencing on the ground.

Actually, recess can also be used to fix data, according to Agatha. “Data on the poor should ideally be fixed every two years. But during the last ten years, there has been no data update because the DPRD did not include it in its budget. It is only this year that funding has been approved for the updating of data.”

Data are essential and can be used as a tool to meet the needs of the community, especially the needs of the poor. Agatha went on to say that in East Java there is an existing poverty reduction program in 33 districts/ municipalities which targets women who are heads of household. They are provided with training in business and mentored until they can be self-sufficient. To reach the target of this program correctly, the provincial government is assisted by a women’s network.

According to Agatha, the data that are needed right now are those about female home workers. She thinks the data collection is still lacking, including additional data on such matters as occupational safety, health and welfare.

Women’s League

Agatha dreams that one day Indonesia will have a Women’s League like the US does. So, when there are women who have political abilities, they will be backed by non-political women’s groups so that they can push the government together. This way, people can ask legislators or even the president to keep the promises they made during their election campaigns. In Indonesia, there seems to be no system that enables people to demand that their leaders keep their promises.

Returning to the spirit of the Women Inspiring Change Conference, Agatha thinks that if there are plans to hold a similar conference, there are some things that should be noted such as formulating together the issues which would be pushed in the subsequent 5 to 10 years, and creating a road map of how to get there. Another important thing is the presence of members of the National House of Representatives (DPR-RI).

At the conference last May 2015, members of the DPR-RI came to contribute as resource persons, but only on the first day, which was disappointing. This is because they should also be present during the discussions. Without their presence, these discussions become less strategic since the legislators are the ones who know the circumstances at the national level. The results of the formulation are therefore not as good as they could be.

For the other participants, hopefully the work of the conference will continue to be pursued by them networking with each other in order to accelerate their joint efforts to alleviate poverty in their respective regions.