INNABUYOG-GABRIELA: Statement on the Occasion of
International Working Women's Day
On March 8, 2008, Filipino women once again call
for a militant commemoration of the International Women's Day to
honor the day of working women. The women's militancy to demand
change and fight for their rights roots back from the historical
condition of oppression and inequality of women. For working class
women, this meant inhuman and slave-like conditions in the form
of feudal and capitalist exploitation.
One hundred years ago, on 8 March 1908, 15,000 women
marched through New York City to demand shorter work hours, just
pay and the right to vote. In the same year in Europe women also
set up strikes, protested against welfare cuts and campaigned for
equal pay and unionization.
In the Philippines, women's participation has always
been significant in the people's historical struggle for sovereignty
and against oppression and exploitation. Filipinas first commemorated
International Women's Day in 1971 at the onset of the dictatorial
rule of Ferdinand Marcos. With the establishment of GABRIELA in
1984, women under the alliance continued the militant tradition
of commemoration of IWD from then on, recognizing the contribution
of millions of working women's struggle in the past.
Today, Filipino working women carry on the struggle
at a time of worsening economic and political crises under the 7-
year Macapagal-Arroyo regime - a regime most subservient to US imperialist
dictates, most corrupt and tyrannical, and almost equals the Marcos
dictatorship in its fascism.The Arroyo regime boasts of a growing
Philippine economy, citing the increase in the country's Gross National
Product and the strengthening of the peso against the US dollar.
The regime further claims that a diminishing hunger incidence as
shown in the last quarter of 2007 survey was due to her good governance
and the success of the hunger mitigation program that she started
in 2005. The concrete experiences of majority of the Filipino people,
especially women who bear the brunt of hunger and poverty, proved
the Arroyo regime's declaration of progress a lie. For the Filipino
people, there has been no meaningful development amidst the economy's
continuing deterioration.
Sham Program, Corrupt Governance
The government's development program such as the Hunger Mitigation
Program is nothing but mere attempts to cosmetize its utter failure
to resolve the fundamental problems of the Philippine economy. The
Arroyo government's ever-ready compliance to policies of imperialist
globalization leads to the bankruptcy of the country's industry
and agriculture, which in turn, causes the widespread dislocation
of workers and farmers. Even owners of small businesses bemoan the
weight of the crisis and its adverse effects on their businesses
and investments.
Reality also runs counter to the Arroyo political
clique's propaganda of good governance. Arroyo and her political
clique are being hounded by unending scandals of corruption and
abuse of authority. Adding to these scandals involving the president,
her husband and their close allies are recent revelations of corruption
and kickback in the ZTE-NBN Broadband project and cases of bribery
in Malacañang and Congress coinciding with a move to consolidate
the administration block to ward off a impeachment case against
the President. Yet in all these corruption scandals and anomalies,
not one of those involved was ever tried, much less punished.
Worsening the Modern Day Slavery of Women in the 7th Year of the
Fake President The worsening economic crisis leads to further deterioration
of Filipino women's social status. Household work remains the woman's
individual responsibility while the crisis further compels women
to seek livelihood to augment the family's income. And yet feudal
patriarchal relations between men and women remain and society,
in general, continues to view women as inferior and second-class
citizens. The number of women victims of sexual abuse both in the
country and abroad continues to rise.
Majority of poor women work as farmer tenants, seasonal
plantation workers or contract workers in the manufacturing industry
and burdened by low wages, absence of benefits and job insecurity.
As primary homemakers, women resort to ingenious ways to earn extra
(providing laundry services, vending food in the streets, etc.)
or to seek work overseas. In fact, majority of present-day Overseas
Filipino Workers are women, who are in jobs most vulnerable to abuse,
such as domestic workers and entertainers.
The Arroyo regime's much touted low hunger incidence
in the country in a survey conducted during the last quarter of
2007 at 16.2 % remains high when compared to a hunger incidence
batting at slightly lower average of 11.9 % over the last 10 years.
This 16.2 % hunger incidence can only be appreciated as lower relative
to a 21.5 % (nominally equivalent to 3.8 million Filipino families)
all-time high posed during the 3rd quarter of 2007. No amount of
propaganda or manipulated statistics could conceal the intensifying
poverty of the Filipino people. And women bear the brunt of the
severity of this crisis.
Effects of a plummeting economy and livelihood push
urban poor families towards further misery. While they suffer from
the uncertainty of irregular source of livelihood, their homes and
communities are being demolished to give way to so-called urban
development projects ostensibly for the benefit of merely a few.
Rather than a social service, the government's housing project is,
in fact, a profit-making endeavor. The government has also turned
its back on providing needed social services, like health services,
to the people.
Intensifying Political Repression
Meanwhile, repression of civil liberties and violation of human
rights persist. The state claims even pregnant women, elders and
children as victims. By 2008, reported human rights violations in
the country have involved 889 victims of political killings, which
include 98 women victims and 58 children. Among 179 cases of enforced
disappearances are 29 women. Recently the military massacred 8 civilians
including 2 children and 3 women, one of whom was pregnant.
Currently, there are 23 women who languish in jail
for political reasons; the most recent illegally arrested and detained
was Elizabeth Principe, a peace advocate and staunch supporter of
the welfare of farmers and indigenous peoples in the countryside.
There are also 8 women victims of rape by the military. The list
of human rights violations continue, as these figures and cases
have yet to include thousands of women and children victims of forcible
evacuation due to massive militarization in the countryside. They
experienced hunger, trauma and various forms of sexual abuse. The
military's policy of rape and sexual abuse against women in captivity
is indeed enraging. The spine-chilling torture and rape the military
committed against missing students Karen Empeño and Sherlyn
Cadapan, and the sexual abuse experienced by 64-year old Angie Ipong
in the hands of her military captors cannot and shall not go unpunished.
As the economic and political crisis escalates,
coupled with the further intensification of the people's protest,
we can only expect - caution and condemnation notwithstanding -
heightened attacks by the Arroyo government against progressive
organizations like GABRIELA.
Intensifying Women's Resistance
Our 8 March 2008 campaign is the persistence of the historic struggle
and victory of the women's movement as our own contribution to the
intensifying struggle of the Filipino people. We will unleash a
strong mass struggle of women against dire poverty, corruption and
tyranny of the Arroyo regime. We will give particular emphasis on
exposing the grave condition of masses of women and the various
forms of violence women experience in the form of poverty and VAW,
as we also criticize and expose the Arroyo
government's hunger mitigation program for what it really is: A
fake program by a fake President.
This March 8, we will conduct actions with the widest
participation of masses of women to fight for their right to livelihood,
housing and social services, for the future of their children and
their families, and for their right against violence, especially
state violence. We will unleash widespread and militant actions
by women and the people against the Arroyo regime's desperate grip
on power. Women are aware that only through their militant struggle,
together with the rest of the people and under the aegis of a national
democratic struggle, can the recurring and worsening crisis of the
semi-colonial and semi-feudal Philippine society meet its decisive
end.
Throughout the world, the struggle of working women
against exploitation is the key to our successful struggle against
all forms of oppression. Only where women are members of the working
force and have collective power will they learn to fight exploitation
and oppression as women. We need to fight the oppression of women
towards our full participation in the economic, political socio-cultural
life of our community. The struggle of organized working class women
will end not only women's oppression but women's exploitation as
well.
Women Unite! Further Assert our Rights and
Survival!
Fight corruption and tyranny! Oust President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo!
Reference:
Ms. Mila Lingbawan
Secretary General, Innabuyog
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