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Join
us for a . . .
PAGTITIPON
(community gathering)
with Emmi de Jesus
Secretary-General of
GABRIELA Philippines
Emmi de Jesus, the Secretary-General of GABRIELA
Philippines, is in the US on a speaking tour sponsored by
the GABRIELA USA National Organizing Committee (GAB USA
NOC).
She will speak to women from all walks of life about the
situation of women in the Philippines as well as the
building of the first overseas chapter of GABRIELA in
cities across the United States.
The Irvine event is hosted by Strong Womyn of Irvine. The
Los Angeles event is hosted by The Womyn's Collective of
Los Angeles.
Emmi de Jesus's National Speaking Tour is sponsored by
the following:
GABRIELA USA NATIONAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
PINAY SA SEATTLE
BABAE SAN FRANCISCO
FILIPINAS FOR RIGHTS & EMPOWERMENT- NEW YORK
BAYAN USA
Background:
Emmi
De Jesus was a founding member of GABRIELA Philippines back in 1984, when
it was comprised of 42 women's organizations in the Philippines. Today, 24
years later, GABRIELA Philippines stands as the largest and most militant
national federation of women's organizations in the Philippines with over
250 member organizations, desks, and institutions under its umbrella.
GABRIELA Philippines, as a Filipina women's campaign center, seeks to
transform women into an organized political force. In doing so, it seeks
to build a movement that deals distinctly with the problems of
Filipinas as women, integrate women's struggles into the national Filipino
movement for genuine sovereignty, and harnesses the power of more than
half of the Philippines' population towards liberation.
GABRIELA Philippines has been a model for other women's movements all over
the globe in its near-quarter century of existence through brutal regimes
and dictatorships in the Philippines.
In 2008, the National Council of GABRIELA Philippines passed a resolution
to build overseas chapters in countries where there are overseas Filipinas
and women of Filipina ancestry, recognizing the specific needs of overseas
Filipina women must also be considered part of the whole of the Filipina
women's situation. The first of these overseas chapters is currently being
established in the United States.
Wed.,
April 9, 2008, 8:00pm
UC Irvine
Irvine, CA 92697
Thurs., April 10, 2008, 6:30pm
3325 Bagley Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90034
Please email terrie@habi-arts.org
to RSVP and for more details, as space is limited
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Community reception
for GABRIELA Secretary General Emmi de Jesus hosted by Filipinas for
Rights and Empowerment (FiRE) at the Bayanihan Center (Woodside, Queens,
NY) on April 18, 2008. Photo by Jonna Baldres |
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NEWS RELEASE
25 April 2008
Reference: Nerissa Guerero, GABRIELA Spokesperson, 371-2302
ACROSS THE NATION: WOMEN RAGE AGAINST HUNGER
Across the nation, members of the militant women's group GABRIELA held
simultaneous women's action to express their outrage at the continuing
increase in prices of goods and utilities and the worsening poverty of
Filipino families.
"With the prices of food continually increasing while job opportunities
are narrowing and wages pegged at pre-historic level, our families are
experiencing unparalleled hunger and poverty. The government's lame and
off-target response only further infuriates us," said Nerisa Guerero,
spokesperson of GABRIELA.
The women's group said that the latest figure of hunger incidence may have
doubled with the recent phenomenal increases in rice price. As of December
2007, hunger incidence in the country is at 16.2% or roughly 2.8 M
Filipinos families experiencing hunger.
Members of GABRIELA staged a protest action dubbed as Women's Rage Against
Hunger and Gloria at the foot of Mendiola bridge, claiming that they are
fed up with the long queues for cheaper rice and weekly increase of basic
commodities such as oil and food.
"Rice access cards are just a way to cosmetize the truth that we are, in
fact, beggars in our own country where we have to enlist for a few kilos
of rice. This is how the Arroyo government has degraded our families"
added Guerero.
According to Center for Women's Resources (CWR), an independent research
institute for women, more than 3 million Filipino women are unemployed and
underemployed and that women workers are mostly found in jobs that have
the highest separation rate.
"Joblessness is the number one problem of Filipinos. With no source of
regular and adequate income, most Filipinos are utterly helpless in the
midst of soaring prices of goods and utilities," said Guerero.
Simultaneous women's protest actions were also held in Baguio-Cordillera,
Bicol, Cebu City, Negros Occidental, Iloilo City, Davao City, Butuan City
and General Santos City.
"Our demands are clear: peg NFA rice at P18.25, price control of basic
commodities, repeal expanded value added tax (EVAT), P125 wage increase
across the board nationwide and regular jobs. None of the Arroyo
government's 17 priority bills of the include any of these," said Guerero.
"Filipino families will continue to go hungry for as long as the
government adheres to its policies that undermines the production of
staple food such as rice and prioritizes its commitment to iniquitous
trade agreements such importation of rice and development of agricultural
production for export," Guerero concluded.
According to the women's group, thousands of women will take to the
streets on May 1 Labor Day and join the nationwide workers protest action
headed by the militant labor group Kilusang Mayo Uno.###
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Fifty
angry and hungry members of Gabriela Davao staged a picket in front the
city hall today, April 25, and asked the government to employ price
controls and measures such as the suspension or removal of VAT on oil and
power, to provide immediate economic relief for poor consumers and
implement a legislated P125 wage increase across-the-board nationwide.
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