Of the more than a dozen women Philippine President Benigno Aquino appointed to senior administration posts since gaining power in June 2010, one of the most diplomatically sensitive was Miriam Coronel-Ferrer.

Coronel-Ferrer’s credentials for the position of chief negotiator with rebels from the embattled island of Mindanao were excellent: A member of the peace panel since 2010, she was a political-science professor at the University of the Philippines in Quezon City near Manila and an advocate of a negotiated settlement for more than a decade. The problem was whether her gender would be an issue with the rebels.

“I’m not anti-women, but is your counterpart ready?” Coronel-Ferrer, 54, recalls Aquino saying. At that time, the all-male team of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, or MILF, assured Aquino it would accept anyone he appointed.

Success after four decades of conflict would help reintegrate the Muslim-majority region with the largely Catholic nation and boost incentives for investment in an estimated $300 billion of minerals and resources. Failure would risk a resurgence of fighting that has cost as many as 200,000 lives. Coronel-Ferrer has won agreements in the past year on the key issues of wealth- and power-sharing and aims for a final accord with the biggest rebel group in talks scheduled for next month.   Women Unlock 300 Billion in Resources in the Phillipines