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 COURAGE
Confederation for Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government Employees
PRESS RELEASE
March8, 2012
References: Ferdinand Gaite, National President, cp num 09208515163
Santi Dasmarinas Jr., COURAGE 1st Vice President 9295342


STATE WORKERS JOIN INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY RALLIES

MANILA – Members of the militant COURAGE today joined the nationwide rallies commemorating the International Women’s Day. At the National Capital Region, at least a thousand assembled along Quezon Boulevard before proceeding to Plaza Miranda to join the program sponsored by the militant women’s group GABRIELA.

In an interview, COURAGE National President Ferdinand Gaite said more than half of the 1.4 million government employees are women and they too bear the brunt of low pay and benefits cut amidst the rising cost of living. “We are in solidarity with the other sectors who are calling for a stop against oil overpricing and the immediate scrapping of the 12% VAT on oil and the oil deregulation law. An average of once or twice a week oil price hike is simply unbearable especially for an ordinary employee whose minimum pay is only less than P8,000 a month sans deductions”. The situation is revolting and the government is doing nothing”.

The three major oil companies hiked their prices early today by at least P0.60/liter for premium and unleaded gasoline, P0.85 / liter for regular gasoline and P0.20/liter for diesel.

Gaite also admonished the government officials who are proposing to buy a new bullet-proof limousine and even a jet for the President. “At this point that the people are suffering from the unimpeded price increases, their haste in proposing that government should spend millions for the President should have been directed at resolving the unabated oil price increases that are triggering the corresponding increases in prices of goods”.

“The President should be thinking of taking the needed steps like putting a lid on oil overpricing and monopolies to “bullet-proof” the people from deeper poverty”.

The leader stressed it is for this reason that the government employees chose to join the rallies to present their issues rather than the usual celebratory activities in their offices. “March 8 is no longer about celebrating women being at par with their male counterparts. Its about women taking their rightful place in the struggle for change together with the rest of the oppressed and marginalized sectors of the society”. #

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Pandaigdigang Araw ng Kababaihan
8 March 2012

Release: Cristina Guevarra, Hustisya secretary general 0949-1772928

Sigaw ng mga biktima sa Marso 8
Hustisya para sa mga kababaihang biktima
ng paglabag sa karapatang pantao!

Kasama ang kababaihan ng Gabriela, nagmartsa ang mga babaeng biktima at kaanak patungong Mendiola para isigaw ang hustisya sa lahat ng biktima ng paglabag sa karapatang pantao.

“Araw-araw, binubusabos tayo ng walang tigil na pagtaas na presyo ng langis at mga bilihin. Araw-araw dinaranas natin ang hirap dulot ng krisis. Kapag umangal tayo, gagawin nila ang lahat para tayo’y manahimik,” ani Cristina Guevarra, pangkalahatang kalihim ng Hustisya.

Ayon sa Karapatan, mula sa 67 biktima ng extrajudicial killings sa ilalim ni Pang. Noynoy Aquino, lima rito ay mga babae. Samantala, mayroon ding nakakulong na 35 babaeng bilanggong pulitikal.

“Pinapatay ang mga nagluluwal ng buhay. Ikinukulong ang mga babaeng piniling palayain ang kanilang sarili at lumaban. Matwid lang kumilos ang kababaihan dahil inutil si P-Noy sa mga sigaw ng hustisya at karapatan, lalo na ng kababaihan,” ani Guevarra.

Ginugunita rin ng grupo ang mga kababaihang biktima ng pamamaslang, pagdukot at iba pang paglabag sa karapatang pantao ngayong Marso 8, gaya nina Benjaline Hernandez, Eden Marcellana, Karen Empeño, Sherlyn Cadapan at Rebelyn Pitao. Lahat sila ay mga biktima ng pamamaslang at pagdukot sa ilalim ng dating rehimeng Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, na hanggang ngayon ay di pa rin nabibigyang-hustisya.

Ayon din sa grupo, hindi ligtas ang kababaihan sa pagpapatupad ng Oplan Bayanihan ng gobyernong Aquino. “Sa ilalim ng Oplan Bayanihan, ilang kababaihan na ang biktima ng karahasan ng militar, gaya ng pinaslang na pitong taong gulang na batang si Sunshine Jabinez, at isang 21-anyos na ginahasa sa loob mismo ng isang kampo ng military sa Masbate,” paliwanag ni Guevarra.

Mariin ding tinutulan ng grupo ang patuloy na US-RP Balikatan exercises na anila’y panunumbalik na ng mga tropang militar ng US sa Pilipinas, bagay na yumuyurak hindi lamang sa pambansang kasarinlan bagkus sa karapatan ng mga kababaihan.

“Ilang Nicole pa ba ang magiging biktima ng karahasan ng mga sundalong Kano? Ilang mamamayan pa ang kanilang lalapastanganin at itatratong parang baboy? Nananawagan kami sa taumbayan na tutulan ang panunumbalik ng mga sundalong Kano sa Pilipinas, at usigin ang gobyernong Aquino sa patuloy na pagpapakatuta nito sa dayuhan niyang amo,” pangwakas ni Guevarra. ###

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HUSTISYA (Victims United for Justice)
2/F Erythrina Bldg., #1 Maaralin cor. Matatag Sts. Brgy. Central, Quezon City 1100 Philippines
Telefax: (632) 434-2837 | E-mail: hustisya.media@gmail.com
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PRESS RELEASE MARCH 7, 2012

IBA'T-IBANG SEKTOR NG TIMOG KATAGALUGAN NAGKAKAISA SA KAGYAT NA PAGPAPALAYA SA KABABAIHAN AT LAHAT NG BILANGGONG PULITIKAL

CALAMBA LAGUNA-- Habang papalapit ang pandaigdigang araw ng kababaihan dalawang kababaihan ang saktong isang buwan ng iligal na nakapiit sa malamig na selda ng Bicutan. Naglunsad ng kilos-protesta ang iba't-ibang sektor kasabay ng arraignment sa gawa-gawang kaso laban sa dalawang kababaihan ngayong araw.

Pawang mga kababaihang ang hangad lamang ay maaliwalas na kinabukasan para sa kabataan at sa mamamayang Pilipino, si Evelyn Legaspi miyembro ng regional council ng Katipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap -Timog Katagalugan (KADAMAY-TK) at Pastora Latagan, regional staff ng KADAMAY-TK ay tinuturing na kriminal ngayon ng gubyerno ni Aquino. Kumkaharap silang dalawa ng gawa-gawang kasong multiple murder, multiple frustrated murder, at multiple attaempted murder gayundin ng illegal possession of explosives.

''Lubos na kinukundena ng GABRIELA-Southern Tagalog (GABRIELA-ST) ang ganitong pasistang atake sa mga kababaihan, partikular kababaihang aktibista, tagapagtanggol ng maralita at inaapi'' Ito ang galit na pahayag ni Rjei Manalo, pangkalahatang kalihim ng GABRIELA-ST.

Ayon naman sa grupong KARAPATAN, tagapagsulong ng karapatang pantao, hindi raw ito ang unang beses para sampahan ng mga gawa-gawang kaso ang mga kritiko ng pamahalaan. Paliwanag ni Glen Malabanan, Secretary General ng KARAPATAN-ST ''Sa katunayan, noong 2009, ay kinaharap ng rehiyon ang pagsasampa ng gawa-gawang kaso sa mga lider aktibista katulad ng ST 72. Kahalintulad din ng mga kasong kinakaharap nila Evelyn at Pastora''.

Lubos din ang galit ng KADAMAY-ST, pinahayag nila ang pagkadismaya sa pamahalaan ni Aquino, dahil ang mga tagapagtanggol ng maliliit katulad ng dalawa ay malinaw na sinusupil. ''Ang tuwid na daan ni Aquino ay baluktot sa mga maralita tulad namin, hindi krimen ang makipaglaban sa lupang panirikan at higit hindi krimen ang makipaglaban sa maaliwalas na kinabukasan.'' Ito ang pahayag ni Ka Marlon, tagapagsalita ng KADAMAY-ST.

Sa isang pahayag naman ni XL Fuentes ng BAYAN-TK, binatikos nito ang kapalpakan ng kapulisan. Ayon sa grupo dapat ang pinagtutuunan ng pansin ng PNP ay ang mga tunay na kriminal at hindi ang mga aktibistang nakikipaglaban sa mga l;ehitimong karapatan ng taumbayan. ''Ang kriminal na dapat kinukulong nga kapulisan ay ang mga katulad ng suspek sa pagpatay sa mag-aaral sa UPLB, ang dapat nakakulong ay ang mismong pulis ng San Pedro Laguna na sangkot sa panghohold-up, pagpatay at pagtapon sa septic tank sa isang negosyanteng intsik, ang dapat nakakulong ngayon ay si Palparan at hindi sila Ka Pastora at Ka Evelyn.'' Paliwanag ni fuentes.

Pinahayag ng iba't-ibang grupo ang kanilang panawagang pagpapalaya kay Evelyn at Pastora sa kagyat, gayundin sa lahat ng bilanggong pulitikal. Sinusubukan ding abutin ng grupo ang iba't-iba pang ahensya ng gubyerno para ipabatid kanilang panawgan. Magiging bahagi din ng programa sa Women’s Day Celebration sa Timog Katagalugan ang panawagang pagpapalaya sa dalawa.

Reference: XL Fuentes, 0927-8066-248

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SERVE THE PEOPLE!
Visit us @ bayanst.wordpress.com

 

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Information Bureau
Communist Party of the Philippines

Press Release
March 08, 2012

CPP joins Filipino women in marking International Women's Day with protests

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today expressed support and solidarity with the Filipino women in marking the 98th anniversary of International Women's Day with mass protests against oil price increases and intensifying American military intervention.

"The Filipino women, especially, the women from the ranks of the toiling masses, are suffering from increasing oppression and poverty as a result of incessant increases in the prices of petroleum products, cooking gas, food and other basic commodities, water, electricity, education, health and other essential social services" said the CPP.

"Filipino women bear the brunt of the economic crisis," added the CPP. "As mothers, they suffer from seeing their children go hungry, or go absent from school, when their children get sick and health care is inaccessible."

"Filipino women suffer under the Aquino regime's antipeople policies that give priority to foreign big capitalists and their local partners and attack the welfare of the people," said the CPP. "They suffer gravely from the attacks of the Aquino regime against the urban poor who are being uprooted by the thousands from their homes and livelihoods to give way to urban havens for big foreign capitalists."

"It is not only just, but necessary, for the Filipino women and people, to launch mass actions and other forms of collective protest against weekly oil price hikes by the foreign big oil companies," said the CPP.

"The intransingence of the Aquino regime and its refusal to heed the people's clamor to roll back oil prices and repeal the oil deregulation law should be met with maximum indignation and protests," pointed the CPP.

"Filipino women are at the same time waving high the banner of patriotism and national sovereignty in opposing plans to set up mini-Subic military facilicities for American so-called rotational troops, for the docking of American naval warships and the stationing of American surveillance drones."

"With the women's sector taking an important role in upholding Philippine national sovereignty, the US imperialists will have a difficult time in their plan to trample on the Filipino people and achieve their plan of using the Philippines as a base for hegemonic plans to lord it over the Asia-Pacific."

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NEWS RELEASE
8 March 2012

References: LANA LINABAN, Secretary General (0908 8653582)
JOMS SALVADOR, Deputy Secretary General (0918 9182150)
Public Info Dept (3712302)

On International Women’s Day
GABRIELA gripes at oil price hikes, swarms LTFRB, Pandacan oil depot

FED up with shrinking incomes and surging prices of oil, women from GABRIELA mark International Women’s Day with simultaneous actions at the Pandacan Oil Depot and the LTFRB office to protest the escalating price of oil and pending increase in jeepney fares.

Hours after Shell and Petron increased prices of gasoline, diesel and kerosene, urban poor mothers and students banged pots and pans as they trooped to the oil depot in Pandacan to condemn the largest three oil corporations that operate storage facilities there. Joms Salvador, Gabriela Deputy Secretary General, angrily blamed Petron, Shell and Caltex companies for ruining the lives of women and their families with weekly hikes in the prices of oil products including cooking fuel. Last month alone liquid petroleum gas shot up by around P150 pesos per tank.

“We also denounce the useless government of President Noynoy Aquino for allowing these three rapacious robbers for rendering International Women’s Day a day of agony amid surging prices while the oil cartel steals billions of dollars in profits from our labors,” Salvador declared.

In Quezon City, women consumers raced for time to attempt stopping an increase in public transport fares. At the office of the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB), where a hearing on the fare hike petition is being held, Lana Linaban, Secretary General of GABRIELA, led agitated women from different sectors in opposing the fare hike.

“As mothers, we are mindful that the proposed solution of fare hikes will worsen further the economic hardships of everyone, while letting the real culprits off the hook. We warn the Aquino government not to use fare hike as a convenient scapegoat for his inutility in curbing oil price increases lest he risks the public’s heightened rage,” Linaban said to the LTFRB board.

The GABRIELA leader appealed to transport groups to side with commuters and instead pressure the Aquino government to regulate the oil industry for a longer-lasting solution to runaway prices. Economic relief, both for drivers and consumers, can only happen if the pricing of oil and other petroleum products is effectively regulated by the government.

“The only workable way out is a freeze on oil price increases, the removal of the 12% E-VAT and the junking of the Oil Deregulation Law,” Linaban said.

The national commemoration of International Women’s Day will culminate in a gathering of 10,000 women in Plaza Miranda at 4:00 pm. They will then march to Mendiola at 6:00 pm to condemn the Aquino government’s connivance with the oil cartel and US government in opening up our resources and territory for plunder and war.

Coinciding with the Manila event are protest actions in major places nationwide and overseas. This protest action will be followed by a National Day of Protest vs Oil Overpricing on March 15th in different cities across the nation led by the Koalisyon ng Progresibong Manggagawa at Mamamayan (KPMM). ###

Public Information Department
GABRIELA National Alliance of Women in the Philippines
(+632) 3712302

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Scholar tackles Rizal and the woman question : A review
Mai Andre D.P. Encarnacion

“Who is the ‘real’ and ‘true’ Rizal?”

Scholar E. San Juan addresses this question, as he seeks to “explore the network of duplicities and contradictions” related to it in a postmodern age in his book Sisa’s Vengeance: Rizal/Women/Revolution (2011).

San Juan claims that despite the confusion between the “public appearance and covert essence” of Rizal due to several ambiguous meanings which can be extracted from his life and works, he remains “unique and extraordinary in his single-minded commitment to his people’s liberation.”

San Juan’s book, composed of two long essays on Rizal, also aims to give a glimpse of the biographical as well as the socio-historical conditions that made the emergence of such a man in his time possible. The hero’s personal tragedies, in addition to the inspiration of his predecessors such as the Gomburza, are visible in his works and writings, according to the author, as an anagogic idea of vengeance – a “collective mode of fulfilling a promise to ancestors to heal the rupture of interrupted group exchanges—as the legitimizing foundation of a nation-in-the-making.”

The will to right wrongs and redress grievances was a desire that sprang early on in the life of Rizal in the form of their exile from the family home in Calamba, the brutal treatment of his mother by local authorities and the blow he received from the guardia civil.

Rizal and the Revolution

In the first essay titled “Rizal and the Revolution in the Age of Imperial Terrorism,” San Juan argues for the importance of a dialectical, historical-materialist appraisal of Rizal’s life and works.

The 150th birth anniversary of the hero is an opportunity to reassess the works of Rizal. Now more than ever, it is time to re-think what it means to be Filipino in a time when the country is being re-colonized by the United States under the guise of the global war on terror and the diasporic condition of Filipino laborers scattered across the globe while “their homeland’s natural endowments, cultures and traditions are wasted by foreign profiteers supported by comprador parasites who claim to be the elected stewards of the land.”

Drawing from Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach (1975) which stresses the importance of viewing the individual subject as the totality of its social relations, San Juan critiques several biographical accounts of Rizal’s life and corpus by figures such as Leon Maria Guerrero, Nick Joaquin and Ante Radaic for the limitations inherent in their works.

Guerrero is criticized for painting Rizal as a reluctant revolutionary, which leans toward a dualistic either/or perspective, which privileges certain aspects of Rizal’s life and career. San Juan questions the contention that Rizal’s La Liga Filipina was meant to attract rich liberals and progressives while the Katipunan was founded for the proletariat.

Both Guerrero and Joaquin are critiqued for their being “die-hard apologists for the ilustrado generation of surviving creoles” whom Joaquin credits for envisioning a “compact and homogenous society based on common interests and mutual protection” from within the unified totality created by Spain and Christianity of the islands’ tribes.

Radaic’s psychoanalytical study of Rizal’s physical deformities and sublimated libidinal impulses is critiqued in turn for not providing, in San Juan’s eyes, the radical social phenomenon that was Rizal, and for endorsing a “toxic ideology of individualism” which Rizal himself was said to disavow.

Furthermore, when discussing the Fili’s dedication to the three martyr priests of Gomburza, San Juan reveals the intention of Rizal to “demystify and expose” the social cancer through radical social critique. It is this theme of curing the body politic which motivates several important questions surrounding Rizal’s work and life.

For San Juan, it is critique, ever-present in Rizal’s two novels, which provides the mode of intervention and agency needed in the absence of a transcendent power and to salvage what is valuable into a “new, enlarged frame of rationality.” It is the drive to take charge of what is both required and accidental in the narrative, “the necessary and contingent” which is revealed in the author as the existential question of human affairs in the absence of deity is staged. “In a world bereft of gods or any transcendent cosmic power,” says San Juan, “healing ensues after purgation of the toxic elements and the salvation of the body through the collective sacrifice of humans making their own history.”

The case of the 20 young women from Malolos who petitioned Governor General Weyner for a “night school” under Teodoro Sandiko reveals Rizal’s espousal of rational judgement and good will. Its conditional approval was met with controversy that “reverberated up to Spain.” Rizal’s letter printed in La Solidaridad in 1889 reveals both his disdain for the “avaricious friars and malicious Spaniards’ and his concern for the maternal function and its great effects. Because mothers are the first to “influence the consciousness of man,” they are urged to “awaken and prepare the will of our children towards all that is honourable, judged by proper standards, to all that is sincere and firm of purpose, clear judgement, clear procedure; honesty in act and deed, love for the fellowman and respect for God.”

Despite this, in Rizal’s mind, the Filipina mother has become a “slave, hoodwinked and tied, rendered pusillanimous.” In fact, San Juan quotes Rizal as generalizing that the backwardness of Asia was due to the “ignorance and slavery of their women.”

Sisa’s Vengeance

Though the topic of women and their importance was briefly touched on in the first essay, it is only in ‘Sisa’s Vengeance: Rizal and the Woman Question’ that San Juan asks: “What is Rizal’s ultimate assessment of women’s actual virtue and potential?” In this essay, San Juan explores through a historical-materialist lens the subaltern marginalization of women with the advent of colonialism and its apparatuses.

To explain this pivotal moment in Philippine history, San Juan turns to Engels and his treatise, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1844; 1891) which states that in the patriarchal, monogamous family based on private property, women were “relegated to the private sphere of the kitchen and the boudoir.”

San Juan opposes this situation to pre-Hispanic Philippines where women’s productive function gave them autonomy and parity with men. San Juan says that women were “relatively sovereign thinking, and enjoying subjects like men,” in a communal setup which was destroyed by the advent of colonialism and its regulation of women’s bodies by the church and private property.

San Juan asks: “(W)as Rizal… a contributor to the maintenance of the patriarchal order or a critic of the effects of the social division of labor in class society which is the condition of possibility for male supremacy… ?” In the following sequences, he reflects on the role characters such as Maria Clara (as a mediating instrument to satisfy the demands of filial piety), Juli (as a figure of women’s defiance), and Sisa; in addition to the role of real women in Rizal’s life such as his mother Teodora Alonzo, Leonor Rivera, Segunda Katigbak, etc.

San Juan also paints a clear picture of Rizal’s admiration of his mother, who he calls “a woman of more than ordinary culture.” Hence his mother’s humiliation and detention on a false charge when Rizal was merely 11, pushed Rizal to create characters who sublimated his mother’s painful experiences in order to resolve the trauma. San Juan writes:

“Sisa’s walk to the barracks is Rizal’s re-enactment of his mother’s torture, an unforgiveable outrage. It was not just an empathetic reliving of the mother’s agony but a mimetic performance of the ordeal.”

Sisa’s sense of honor, however “testifies to an inherent human dignity,” according to San Juan – qualities which Rizal recommended Filipina women to acquire. San Juan then draws from Rizal’s studies of the manggagaway (witch) and the babaylan to reveal the fate of women unable to assimilate to the roles assigned to them by the syncretisation of the church. San Juan claims that colonial society ascribes its “vices, crimes and ignorance” to a portion of the female population and in doing so, “acquits male authority of any wrongdoing.” In Rizal’s novels, the sacred and profane are but two sides of the same coin and it is his duty to “enlighten his women compatriots...of the need to liberate themselves from...mind-forged manacles by their own collective effort and initiative.”

The author then returns us to Rizal’s address to the young women of Malolos where he pinpoints Rizal’s revelation of the efficacy of colonization’s subalternization of women. Rizal bewailed “blind submission to any unjust order” and urged the use of the rational faculty in all facets of their lives. This rejection of the stereotype of “modesty, passivity, and docility” is also an attempt to include women as qualified participants in the fashioning of the “General Will.”

According to San Juan, motherhood for Rizal is not merely a natural attribute but an acquired social role. He would then praise the civic consciousness and unity of Spartan women – their “austere independence” and their “giving birth to men who were willing to sacrifice their lives in defense of their homeland.”

Finally, the reader is called to the legend of Maria Makiling, who, betrayed by her mortal lover, took revenge and left the world of mortals thereafter.

Invoking Rizal’s suggestion that perhaps she was incensed by the attempt of Dominican friars to strip her of half the mountain, San Juan says: “The original harmony of humans and the ecosystem is sundered by predatory acquisitiveness, by the exploitation of nature to yield subsistence…”

“And so,” San Juan claims “did Salome abandon her home in the forest, so did Sisa and Juli depart from the fallen world… And with Rizals’ ultimate sacrifice, Sisa’s revenge is viewed through his plea to pray or “our unhappy mothers who in bitter sorrow cries.” And after honoring the role and exposing the suffering of women, San Juan, quoting Zaide, poses a challenge to their children: “The furrow is ready and the ground is not sterile!” (1984, p. 74)
 

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ALLIANCE OF CONCERNED TEACHERS-PHILIPPINES STATEMENT ON 2012 INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY
by Act Phils on Thursday, March 8, 2012

Teachers join women to resist heightened US imperialist intervention and direction in the nation’s economic, political and military affairs

This year, as we mark more than a century of women struggles as they fight for change to improve their lives, communities, education and health, teachers under the Alliance of Concerned Teachers salutes women!

Women comprise more than 80 % of the total teaching force inside the country. Today, as we commemorate March 8, International Working Women’s Day, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers joins women from all over the world for their unwavering commitment to combat the different forms of violence inside and outside our homes brought about by the current crisis.

International Women’s Day is also a crucial opportunity to raise awareness of inequality, and reinvigorate public demand for equality and positive change and root out the impact of the crisis to both men and women worldwide.

Because of decades of globalization policies, the country was actually already deep in crisis by the time the global financial and economic turmoil erupted in 2008. This turmoil appeared to have relatively less impact on the Philippine economy than its neighbors in the region with, for instance, low but still positive economic growth. The government and many mainstream economists distorted this as indicating “resiliency” and “solid economic foundations”. The reality however is that the impact of the turmoil was on top of what was already a very difficult situation to begin with.

The current economic and financial crises of the crumbling capitalist system hit women the hardest. The economic and ecological repercussions of these crises increased the vulnerability of women to the different forms of oppression, discrimination and violence inside and outside their homes.

As pointed out by the International Women’s Alliance (IWA) unemployment, lack of social security, and budgetary cuts for social services put women in dangerous positions: they were forced to leave their families to work as domestic or factory workers in other countries where they face exploitation and abuse, in addition to discrimination and xenophobia immigrant workers are subjected to in host countries. Many poor women were also forced into prostitution or become victims of trafficking.

All is not well for the world economy and this is the single most important economic feature in the current world situation. The government’s Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2011-2016 and national government (NG) budget for 2012 however seem oblivious to this and assume a world economic situation that is long past. They are still anchored on an export-oriented and foreign-investment led model that is no longer viable.

Privatization is intensified with even greater incentives for big business, especially foreign investors, through so-called regulatory risk guarantees. Its coverage is also greatly expanded into health, education and housing – reducing these vital social services into opportunities for profit and foreshadowing making them unaffordable and inaccessible to the country’s poor and poorest.

It does not seem that any area of the economy will be spared from PPPs and the administration’s list is long: power, telecommunications, information technology, highways, roads, railways, ports, airports, transport systems, irrigation, canals, dams, water supply, sewerage, markets, warehouses, slaughterhouses, government buildings, land reclamation, tourism and industrial estates.

The Aquino administration and its PDP is forced to acknowledge the unavoidable consequences of decades of globalization but instead of dealing with the roots of the problem it instead seeks to merely cover up for these with a multi-billion peso CCT program that is expensive, debt-driven and unsustainable aside from being prone to abuse, patronage and corruption. There are also already reports of CCTs being used less for anti-poverty than counterinsurgency.

Women from the education sector are not strangers to the on-slaught of capitalist greed. Our pay cannot take us home too. We also resort to various economic activities to be able to survive ourselves and our families. We cannot close our eyes to the realities of millions of children from working class families who drop and altogether stop schooling for obvious reasons.

The direct and indirect ways that gender inequality prevents women of all ages in realizing their human rights as gender-based violence continue to be widespread. It requires action now because women’s health, education, right to decent work and freedom from all forms of violence. For us, women in the education sector, access to a well- rounded reproductive health program is in order. Our maternity leave pay and benefits must also be increased.

We, teachers, enjoin women to fight unprecedented hunger and poverty as we and our families are dislocated and dispossessed from our lands communities. Yes, fight back, we must, because imperialist greed breeds violence and repression.

Community youth in Davao City participate in a street theater in commemoration of International Women's Day on Thursday. They touched on issues of contractualization, workplace exploitation and corruption.

Student leader and Gabriela youth member Maureen Villamor of the Ateneo de Davao University spoke about the challenges women face in today's society in front of Davaoenos on Thursday to commemorate International Women's Day.
 

 Women's rights were upheld while pertinent social issues were raised during a street theater performance by community youth in Davao City. March 8th is International Women's Day.
 

Thousands of women commemorated International Women's Day in Davao City on Thursday by staging a cultural protest against the existing social injustices, most especially the worsening economic crisis.
 

Press Release
March 10, 2012

Calls for Social Justice Marked Int’l Womens’ Day

Davao City – “The government engrosses itself on the Corona impeachment trial in an effort to conceal its sluggish action, if any, regarding the concerns of Filipinos,” declared Mary Ann Sapar, GABRIELA-Southern Mindanao Secretary General in an interview.

GABRIELA has mentioned the economic woes of women in various sectors in earlier statements, decrying the dwindling value of the Philippine peso and the impacts of this on women.

She added, “Poor women are economically and politically underprivileged in a feudal-patriarchal society such as the Philippines. While women suffer from the country’s chronic inflation as consumers and home managers, systemic discrimination of women has made it more difficult for them to find employment. If they do, they are usually given menial jobs and positions with lower salaries. They are also subject to sexual harassment and other malpractices in the workplace.”

“Crimes against Filipino women are being committed on a daily basis,” according to the Center for Women’s Resources (CWR), citing 14, 201 recorded rape incidents from January 2000 to August 2011.

The CWR mentioned 13 rape cases attributed to the AFP, PNP, and paramilitary groups from January to June 2011. Furthermore, the CWR underscores women persecuted by the aforementioned repressive state agencies – from July 2010 to December 2011, six women are victims of extrajudicial killings, while 35 are currently political prisoners.

 

GABRIELA referred to cases in Davao region such as those of Rebelyn Pitao, murdered daughter of New People’s Army (NPA) leader Parago, and of Vanessa de los Reyes, an hor de combat in custody of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), in substantiation of the CWR report.

“The persistence of human rights violations especially against women and the number of political prisoners testifies to the hypocrisy of the Aquino government in seeking social justice. GABRIELA commits to further advance women’s socio-economic rights in the struggle for genuine social change,” declared Sapar.

On March 8, in solidarity with women over the entire globe, women’s organization GABRIELA, along with other people’s organizations, commemorated the 102nd International Working Women’s Day at Rizal Park, addressing economic and socio-political concerns of Filipino women.

The organizations in attendance registered protests against the failure of the government’s land reform program, the inhumane minimum wage workers are receiving, the education crisis, recent oil price hikes, mounting crime rates, the United States’ military intervention, extrajudicial killings and human rights’ violations, and the ineptitude of the Aquino administration in tackling the country’s socio-economic problems.#


Reference:
Mary Ann Sapar
09461893168

Press Release
08 March 2012
 

For reference: Rowena dela Cruz
Vice Chairperson, Tel. No.: 69255736

Pinays in HK say price increase and poverty kill OFWs’ hope of coming home for good

Women OFWs under the banner of GABRIELA Hong Kong held a protest action today at the Philippine Consulate General against what they call as a “dying hope” for Filipino women migrants to go back for good to the Philippines in the face of price hikes, increased government exaction from OFWs and worsening poverty in the country.

“We are doomed to be modern-slaves overseas for life as we carry the increasing financial burden of our families we left behind. We are forced into indebtedness and endure abusive treatment just so we can continue to work abroad and help our loved ones survive,” declared Rowena dela Cruz, vice chairperson of GABRIELA Hong Kong.

Dela Cruz pointed to the weekly oil price hike and the Expanded Value Added Tax (EVAT) as culprits for the increase in prices of basic commodities and services. Last February 19, GABRIELA Hong Kong started to gather signatures to scrap the Oil Deregulation Law and EVAT as part of the actions of the GABRIELA Philippines’ initiated Alerto Taas Presyo Network or ALTAPRESYO(n).

“The greed of oil companies and the desperation of the bankrupt government to squeeze more income from the people eventually impact us OFWs who are breadwinners of our family as we scramble to make ends meet. This is not made any easier by the multitude of fees the government regularly charges us,” she added.

Among these fees, said dela Cruz, are the high cost of passport processing overseas, the overseas employment certificate, OWWA and the mandatory insurance policies.

Recently, the labour attaché in Hong Kong announced that the OWWA will not be made a preconditional fee to get an OEC. However, GABRIELA-HK gathered reports that the OWWA fee is now a precondition for processing of contracts.

“We are not only made as milking cows but also being made fools by the Philippine government and their officials in Hong Kong. Apparently, Aquino is no different from his predecessors as he continues to implement the same old policy of turning to labour export for the country’s survival,” dela Cruz remarked.

Dela Cruz further declared that they do not see indication in the Aquino government’s program that will lead to better employment and genuine development for the people.

“His economic programs include letting foreign multinational companies to plunder our natural resources, flooding the country with call centres, privatizing government assets and public services, and belt-tightening measures for the majority. His political direction is geared towards foreign military intervention and more human right abuses. Is there really hope for the millions of us abroad to live a decent life with our families?” dela Cruz lamented.

GABRIELA-Hong Kong is set to lead a bigger protest action of women OFWs this Sunday, March 11. On the same day, OFWs will join other women migrant workers in a rally at the HK Central Government Office to demand a wage increase and to call for an end to discrimination and violence against women.#
 

March 8, 2012 is a historic day. It marks the 101st celebration of the International Women’s Day when over a million men and women stood valiantly and fought for the right to suffrage of women, demanded humane working conditions for all and struggled to end gender discrimination.
 

These men and women had all been gone by now, but the ideals they implanted on the annals of history continue to inspire today’s movements of women fighting for equality of rights, justice, freedom, peace and genuine national and social liberation. The courage and fervor they had shown to uplift the lot of women around the world lingers on.
 

In the current era of globalization and imperialism, women get the hardest blow. Their struggles are deeply embedded in societies where the rights of women are constantly threatened, if not totally subjugated and violated inside and outside of the home. Their bondage is deeply rooted in the milieu of societies where they are in and where the chains of patriarchy and fundamentalism still exists.
 

Women migrants, like many of us here, have no escape. Like migrants from other nationalities (MONs) we are violated against thrice over: as migrants, as women and as citizens coming from a poorer country. Our marginalization is further aggravated by state policies that reduce us into virtual commodities for sale. We are locked up in a quagmire in which only our collective efforts could free us.
 

Our celebration today is even more significant because it is hovered by memories of the March 11 tragedies that took away lives of many of our women – mothers, sisters, and daughters. The trauma and cries for justice of all the victims and survivors continue because in the face of these tragedies coming one after the other, the Japanese government has refused to acknowledge its responsibilities.
 

Worse, it has tricked people to blindly accept the laws of nature as the culprit for all their sufferings while saving its face and the monopoly capitalists’ whose unbridled exploitation of our people and environment caused these unprecedented disasters. Proof of this is Japan’s adamant position on the Fukushima nuclear crisis which we all shall have to bear for many years to come.
 

Thus, our coming together is not only to celebrate the advances won by women’s movements the world over in the struggle for emancipation and genuine social change; nor to merely recognize the need to continue the militant tradition to end all forms of gender-based violence, oppression, exploitation and discrimination. We are also here to honor the survivors and the more than 20,000 lives that perished in the March 11 tragedies. We dedicate our struggle to them and to the thousands of other women around the world who had shed their lives for the struggle.
 

At this point, may we call on everyone to please rise, and together, let us offer a minute of silence for the victims and survivors of the March 11 tragedies and to our fallen mothers, sisters and daughters in struggle.
(A minute of silence.)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

As women migrants in Japan, we are inspired by the militant tradition started by our courageous sisters in struggle 101 years ago. And as we continue to fight to end our own oppression and exploitation and the continued commodification of our labor, we shall be part of this militant tradition that seeks to unshackle the chains of women oppression and exploitation in all our societies.
 

End the commodification of women and migrant labor around the world!
End violence and discrimination against women!
Save the environment, save humanity!
No to nuclear power plants!
Fight for equality of rights, justice and peace!
Struggle for genuine national and social liberation and women’s emancipation!
Long live international solidarity!
Saitama, Japan
March 10, 2012
GABRIELA Japan website

Press Release

March 9, 2012
Reference: Irma Bajar, Chairperson, Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment (FiRE) - GABRIELA USA, fire.nyc@gmail.com
 

New York Filipinas Celebrate International Women’s Day by Honoring the Advancements of Rural and Indigenous Women Around the World
 

New York City—On March 7 2012, the eve of International Women’s Day, rural and indigenous women and their allies gathered at the United Nations’ Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, at 47th Street and 1st Avenue, to highlight the sector’s contributions to the 101-year-old international struggle for women’s rights. Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment (FiRE), a local member organization of GABRIELA USA—the national alliance of progressive Filipino women’s organizations—organized the event in partnership with the Asian Pacific Forum on Women, Law, and Development (APWLD) and the International Women’s Alliance (IWA), of which FiRE is also a member. Rural and indigenous women traveled from all over the world to NYC to voice their problems and concerns at the annual UN Commission of the Status of Women (CSW), held between February 27-March 9.
 

“This gathering helps us draw connections between our struggles internationally,” said Irma Bajar, chairperson of FiRE. “It allows us to compare the root causes of our seemingly disconnected problems and concerns. Deeper analysis contributes to a stronger sense of solidarity between our peoples. Only then can we organize a more solid, global fight-back against international social forces that cause our oppression.” Many speakers identified how international neoliberal economic policies and imperialist plunder manifests in their respective communities.

Not all the women could access the CSW, therefore, they created their own space to commemorate their respective communities’ struggles. The speak-out program included representatives from organizations from China, Taiwan, Thailand, Fiji, the Philippines, Burma, Cambodia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Ecuador, the local NYC migrant woman community, and others. They located similarities between the struggles of rural and indigenous women from various communities, including landlessness, joblessness, displacement, large-scale mining operations that destroy crops and the environment, cultural discrimination, and forced migration to urban areas and countries abroad in search of better economic opportunities. Such problems doubly oppress women when they also face gender and sexual discrimination and violence.
 

“Many of us here are migrants and children of migrants,” stated Jackie Mariano, Vice Chairperson of FiRE. “Those of us who organize here locally in New York City are products of problems in our home countries, so the connection to rural and indigenous women are clear. If people as a whole cannot attain economic and social emancipation worldwide, then women cannot be liberated.” In the Philippines, over 70% of the 4000 people who leave the country everyday in search for work abroad are women, filling in economic niches that exploit gender stereotypes, such as in the care industry.
 

The celebration also included a poster of “Our Hand of Demands”, created at the site by participants outlining their hands and writing their communities’ demands within them. After the speak-out, women were interviewed for a video that will soon circulate globally to celebrate International Women’s Day. The program ended with a lively dance circle, featuring all the women singing, “We are all women fighting for our rights” in their respective native languages, epitomizing the international militant legacy and spirit of International Women’s Day.
 

FiRE's International Women's Month activities continue on Saturday March 31, when they will be uniting with the Women's Fightback Network, another local organization of the International Women's Alliance. At 12 o' clock PM, they will march on Wall Street to demand an end to Wall Street's "War on Women". They will end the the day in celebrating International Women’s Month at 3 o' clock PM at the Solidarity Center on 55 West 17th St. 5th Floor, New York, NY 10011.
 

Photo Credit: Nikki Saint Bautista; Irma Bajar
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Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment (FiRE) is a mass-based women's organization serving New York City and its surrounding areas. We connect the Filipino diaspora to the women's struggle in the Philippines. We are women of Philippine descent, including those who are migrants, immigrants and US-born. We recognize Filipino women of mixed heritage and adoptees. FiRE is a LGBTIQ-(Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer/Questioning) friendly organization that is inclusive of transgender people of Philippine descent. For more information, please visit http://www.firenyc.org.

We are a proud member organization of GABRIELA-USA, the first overseas chapter of GABRIELA Philippines, with babae in San Francisco, Pinay Sa Seattle in Seattle, WA, and SiGAw in Los Angeles, CA. http://www.gabusa.org

FiRE is a member of BAYAN-USA, an alliance of progressive Filipino groups in the U.S. representing organizations of students, scholars, women, workers, and youth. To learn more about BAYAN, please visit http://bayanusa.org/
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Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment (FiRE) is a mass-based women's organization serving New York City and its surrounding areas. We connect the Filipino diaspora to the women's struggle in the Philippines. We are women of Philippine descent, including those who are migrants, immigrants and US-born. We recognize Filipino women of mixed heritage and adoptees. FiRE is a LGBTIQ-(Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer/Questioning) friendly organization that is inclusive of transgender people of Philippine descent. For more information, please visit http://www.firenyc.org.

We are a proud member organization of GABRIELA-USA that is the first overseas chapter of GABRIELA Philippines. To learn more, please go to http://www.gabusa.org

FiRE is a member of BAYAN-USA, an alliance of progressive Filipino groups in the U.S. representing organizations of students, scholars, women, workers, and youth. To learn more about BAYAN, please visit http://bayanusa.org/