"Notes on the Philippine Women's Movement" by Prof. Judy M. Taguiwalo, Ph.D.

This was the topic of discussion at the last Kapelosopohan, "The Relevance of Feminism in the Philippine Context".

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Notes on the Philippine Women’s Movement: Current Gains, Challenges and Next Steps
JUDY M. TAGUIWALO, Ph.D.
UP Faculty Regent

Presentation to the
National Workshop of Filipino Women
“Liberating Filipino Women through the Years:
A Sharing of Women’s Experiences in Movement Building”
November 10, 2009


Introduction

I was 18 years old when I started to be aware of the need to act against social injustices and inequalities. I am now 59 years old, about to attain dual citizenship when I turn 60 early next year: as a Filipino citizen and as a senior citizen. While I do not now possess the vitality and the freshness of young women like you, I would like to believe that I have retained the passion which made me decide to embark on a life of social activism and to continue the collective quest for social justice in spite of menopause and arthritis.

I am glad to have this opportunity to share with and learn from a new generation of feminists and social activists.

I shall start my presentation with a review of who are the Filipino women and a brief look at our history.

Who are the Filipino women?

We comprise half of the population.
We are daughters, single women, women with partners not necessarily male, mothers, widows, grandmothers
We are students, out of school youth, farmers, workers, professionals, government employees, managers, entrepreneurs, migrant workers, indigenous
But majority of us are poor and powerless.

We live in a country that is largely agricultural, with pockets of urban centers.

We have a long history of colonialism: what one woman writer described as “300 years in the convent and 50 years in Hollywood” referring to the Spanish and American colonial rule in the country.

This history of colonialism continues to shape the economic, political, social and cultural landscape of the country.

The class composition of our society remains as it was during the early part of the 20th century: one percent of the population with vast amount of land, capital and power, a thin middle class and a majority comprising of poor farmers, workers and unemployed. Our economic, political and military policies are tied to those of multilateral institutions such as the World Bank, the IMF and Asian Development Bank and to those of rich countries, primarily the United States and Japan.

Culturally, a colonial, individualist and feudal-patriarchal culture exists with all the paradoxes and dilemma created by the co-existence and overlapping of the so-called modern and traditional ideas, beliefs and practices. This has resulted in the predominance of a culture of subservience with strong Catholic Church influence on mores and behavior especially involving women’s role in society, marriage and reproductive rights existing side by side with American consumerist and individualist culture.

As women, we are vulnerable to violence, our rights to our bodies and our reproductive rights are often violated. We cannot get out of a violent and unhappy marriage except through a costly and time consuming annulment as the Philippines and Malta are the only countries in the world without a divorce law

As farmers, we toil on land usually not our own; we are hardly recognized as productive workers and we are exposed to chemical and pesticides without adequate protection. Seasonally, we go through periods of hunger, tiempos de los muertos, when our harvest has ran out and/or there is no paid work in the fields. We take on various irregular work which pay as low as $1 a day so that our families would have food.

As workers, more than one million of us are unemployed. Those of us who are employed are found predominantly in stereotypically women’s jobs: in export processing zones requiring nimble fingers ; in service work especially in malls and retail stores; as informal workers in the streets and in the markets or as homeworkers doing both paid and unpaid work at home. We suffer from labor contractualization, low pay, poor working conditions, the absence of social protection and vulnerability to sexual harassment in the workplace. The phenomenon of “lie-down or lay off” is not unknown.

As migrant workers, we are part of the 3,772, the average number of Filipinos who left the country daily in 2008. In the past eight years, we women comprised 87% of domestic workers, 76& of professional/technical workers and 27% of production workers employed abroad. Many of these jobs are unregulated (excluded from labor and social legislation) and are in private residences making us vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

As part of the country’s youth, aged 13-35, we belong to the 20 million enrolled in schools and to the 10 million who are out-of school. Out of 100 Filipino students who enter school, only 12 will graduate from college and only one will find employment. No wonder that one out of 3 Filipinos aged 18-25 want to leave the country in search of jobs abroad.

While public elementary and high school education is free and compulsory, inadequate budget allocation for basic education has resulted in classroom and teacher shortages and the general lowering of the quality of education. Tertiary education is dominated by the private sector which charges high tuition and even state universities and colleges have continually raised school fees partly accounting for the high drop out incidence in the college level. “Prostituition” or the phenomenon of female students engaging in paid sex to raise tuition money prior to school opening and the practice of “cuarto or cuatro” (having sex with a teacher or getting a conditional grade of 4 if you refuse) have been documented.

Our maternal health situation is appalling. UNICEF in its 2009 report stated that 11 women die everyday or 4,500 every year due to pregnancy-related and child-birth complications. Of all pregnant women aged 15 to 49, only 88% have consulted at least once with a doctor or nurse while 60% are attended to by a skilled medical personnel when giving birth. Abortion is illegal in the Philippines. But, the International Planned Parenthood Federation estimates that induced abortions in the country ranges from 155,000 to 750,000 per year.

According to one report, thirty per cent of all births belong to the 15-24 year old age group. And by the age of 20, 25% of the youth are already mothers. Another source states that every year at least 64, 000 teenagers have abortions. A recent news article places the figure as seven out of 10 pregnant women are teenagers, many of them younger then 19 years old.

Our women’s movement: history and gains

Our women’s movement has always been political. It asserts that women’s struggles cannot be divorced from the struggle for national independence and genuine democracy. Hence, historically, our women’s movement has always been a part of the broader social movement which engages the state while advocating for women’s equality and liberation. We have a long history of women’s active participation in the struggle for social change and in asserting women’s rights and welfare.

We participated in all major struggles in the country, the anti-colonial movements against Spanish and American colonialism, the armed resistance against Japanese Aggression during World War 2, the movement to resist and to end the Marcos dictatorship, the opposition against the US military bases which led to their closure in 1991.

We continue to be an active and vital part of the ongoing broad people’s opposition against corruption, plunder, election fraud, human rights violations and the sale of our sovereignty being perpetrated by the current Philippine government.

We have launched specific women’s campaigns: the campaign for women’s right to vote which we won in 1937, the closure of the Bataan Nuclear power plant and the opposition to a huge dam project which would have destroyed agricultural and ancestral lands of our indigenous peoples in the North during the Marcos years.

Our women’s movement is against patriarchy embedded in social institutions and in state policies and programs. We have conceptualized and launched creative campaigns to expose violence against women including domestic violence. We have sustained our campaign against the new forms of foreign military presence in the country which have resulted in the rape and violation of our women and which has violated our sovereignty as a nation.

Our women’s movement is an organized movement with the majority of the women, the grassroots women as its backbone. We have formed various women’s organizations: national organizations, organizations of women workers, peasant women, women youth, indigenous women, professional women, prostituted women. We have set up women’s research centers, women’s crisis centers, women’s legal offices and other offices providing services to women’s organizations. And women’s committees have been established in mixed gender organizations such as those for government employees, teachers, migrants, workers and farmers.

Our women’s movement includes academic and legislative arenas as sites of advocacy to support and advance the practical struggles of women for equality and social change. We have mainstreamed women’s studies in various universities and colleges in the country and have been insistent that women’s studies is both scholarship and advocacy. That as an academic discipline, women’s studies can only be dynamic and relevant so long as it links itself with the practical women’s movement and contributes to strengthening this movement.

We have advanced women’s legal rights and position with the passage of a number of pro women and anti-violence against women legislation including the Women in Nation-Building Act (1992) , the Anti-Rape Law (1997) , the Anti-Sexual Harassment Law (1995) , The Rape-Victim Assistance and Protection Act (1998), the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act (2003), the Anti-Violence Against Women and their Children Act (2004) and the Magna Carta of Women which was signed into law only last August. Several city governments have passed women’s ordinances which spell out the rights and privileges that should be afforded women in the localities. We have organized a women’s sectoral party which has won two seats in the lower house of our Congress and which has advocated for the passage of a divorce bill and a reproductive health bill.

Our women’s movement has built international solidarity linkages. Our issues as women are shared by women around the world. Common opposition to neo-liberal policies, political repression, non-recognition of women’s rights as human rights, the pervasiveness of violence against women, among others are the shared platform of women, whether in the Philippines or in other parts of the world. We have formed international solidarity as reflected in the regular holding of the Women’s International Solidarity Affair in the Philippines (WISAP), in our participation in regional formations such as the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development or the Asian Peasant Women’s Network or the Asian Student Association and in international campaigns against WTO and the World Bank.

Our women’s movement has brought forward the blossoming of women’s consciousness and ability as we participate in advancing comprehensive social change and the attainment of gender justice in the country.

There is Carmen Deunida, popularly known as Ka Mameng . A frail woman, who is 71 years old, Ka Mameng is an icon of the protest movement in the country. Poverty prevented her from finishing her secondary schooling and she does laundry to earn her living. At age 50 years old, she became a member of a youth organization who held meetings in her hut. She participated in the struggle to end the Marcos dictatorship and helped found an organization of urban poor women, SAMAKANA. She led her community in resisting demolition teams. Her involvement in women’s organization and in the people’s movement helped her emancipate herself from a womanizing, drinking and violence-prone husband. She led her community in defending their right to their small parcels of land from demolition teams who tried to evict them from their homes. Recently, when given recognition in the 25th anniversary celebration of GABRIELA, the militant Filipino women’s coalition, Ka Mameng firmly stated that she will stop her activism only when she is inside her coffin.

There is Cathy of Negros Occidental, a 22-year old “promo girl” who was raped by a Philippine Army soldier stationed in Bago, Cathy’s hometown. Cathy brought her case to a local radio station whose announcer referred her to Gabriela-Negros. The women’s organization provided her with shelter for 13 months (the first eight months in a women’s shelter and the last five months in one of the community chapters of the organization where she stayed in the homes of the members). The women’s organization facilitated the filing of the case, supported her delivery of a baby girl and facilitated the reintegration of Cathy with her family and community after a dialogue with the military obtained the commitment of the latter for the safety of Cathy. But the story doesn’t end there. Cathy is now an organizer of GABRIELA in her hometown and is highly committed to assisting women who are victims of violence.

And let me tell you about a former student of mine at the University. Her involvement in student organizations allowed her the opportunity to learn and work with farmers’ and workers’ organizations leading her to decide on full time organizing work instead of employment in an office. But that is not all. In the process of her transformation, she has built a loving relationship with another woman activist and overcame the initial objections of her family, especially that of her mother, a devout Catholic believer.

Challenges

While I am proud to say that the women’s movement in our country has gone a long way in placing in the agenda of social transformation women’s issues and concerns and in achieving concrete gains, I am well aware that our movement continues to face many challenges.

Poverty is widespread. The demand for nationalist industrialization and genuine land reform which are the two main economic programs that would ensure economic self-sufficiency and job generation remains unheeded. Instead the neo-liberal economic policies adopted by all Philippine administration since the end of the Marcos dictatorship has emphasized an export-oriented, import-dependent and debt-driven development thrust which has aggravated the impoverishment of the people, has reduced the budget for social services so badly needed by women and the poor and has further deepened foreign control of our economy.

Twenty three years after the first Philippine people power which brought an end to a dictatorship, corruption, electoral fraud and political repression still characterize various Philippine administrations particularly the present Macapagal-Arroyo administration.

Environmental degradation mainly brought about by the unbridled exploitation of our natural resources by foreign mining companies, by the destruction of marine and coastal resources for tourism purposes have further rendered our country and people vulnerable to disasters such as flooding, earthquakes and other natural disasters. Women suffer most during these disasters.

The culture of machismo and sexism is still strongly entrenched buttressed by the power of the Catholic Church.

We still have no divorce law and reproductive health law and the rights of lesbian, gays, bisexuals and transgender remain unrecognized.

The pro-women legislation we have won still have to be fully implemented in the absence of sufficient budget allocation for these programs and the lack of strong mechanisms for their implementation.

The political representation of young women and working-class women in key institutions of power is woefully inadequate.

What next?

In the next six months, we will be engaging ourselves in the election in May 10, 2010 which will choose the next President of the Philippines. The current President, while herself a woman, has brought so much grief to the women of the country. She has been implicated in corruption scandals, in electoral fraud, in massive human rights violation and has obstructed our efforts to promote women’s reproductive health and rights. The election exercise will be an excellent opportunity to put an end to a corrupt and anti-women administration, to propagate and promote the women’s agenda for social change and to elect officials, regardless of gender, with a track record of serving the people and of promoting women’s rights.

Beyond the 2010 elections, the women’s movement will continue to arouse, organize and mobilize the Filipino women in our millions to change ourselves and our situation and to shape a just and prosperous society where equality reigns. We have learned that the militancy, persistence and sustainability of our women’s movement is possible only if it is rooted in the midst of the struggles of the grassroots women, who comprise the majority of Filipino women, and if it is consciously a vital part of the broader social movement.

I am optimistic that our women’s movement will continue to flourish as young women like you and elderly women like me work together in asserting with conviction and militancy that women’s issues are issues of the people and people’s issues are women’s issues!

Abante babae, palaban militante!!!

Session 2: The Relevance of Feminism in the Philippine Context

Kapelosopohan, in community partnership with Kapisanan Philippine Centre for Arts & Culture, invites you to a discussion on

The Relevance of Feminism in the Philippine Context

Sunday, February 28, 2010

1-5pm

Kapisanan Philippine Centre

167 Augusta Avenue, Toronto

(2 blocks west of Spadina Ave., north of Dundas St. West - Click here to see map.)

Let us commemorate the struggle of working women, honour the pioneers, celebrate the militancy and look forward to the Philippine women's movement in the 21st century.

This event is free.

For more information, contact GABRIELA (Filipino women's organization):
Cynthia Palmaria (647) 204-5908, or Esel Panlaqui (647) 222-9368

Saving us from political violence

In The Philosophy of History, Hegel describes “history as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of states, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized.”

The recent massacre of 57 innocent civilians in Shariff Aguak, Maguindanao, along with the two major world conflicts of the last century and numerous violent incidents from Somalia to Iraq show how fragile human society has become. So prevalent is violence in human history that a good part of mankind’s efforts can be understood in terms of our attempts to deal with violence. With the state’s involvement in this human carnage, perhaps the ultimate issue we have to confront is how we can prevent political differences from becoming violent.

Justice, by no means, will be served fully well with the simple filing of charges against Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr., the prime suspect in the Maguindanao barbarity. It only represents the first step, even though symbolic as it is against a political clan that is inextricably tied to the present occupant in Malacanang. All those who participated, directly or indirectly, those who ordered the slaughter, and those who allowed it to happen should be arrested, prosecuted and punished to the fullest extent of the law. But the quest for justice should not end there.
(Please go to http://letterfromtoronto.blogspot.com to read full article.)

Canada’s new underclass

In just a few years, Canada brought in under its temporary foreign workers program an army of low-skilled migrant workers for jobs that Canadians are not willing to take under prevailing wage levels and working conditions. Jobs like vegetable and fruit-picking, work in the oil sands, bait worm collectors, cleaners, packers and people who dismember pigs for meat packaging plants.

When temporary jobs are completed or their work permits run out, or in some cases when jobs are wiped out by an economic recession, these workers are forced to take survival jobs, mostly underground, because of their lack of immigration status.

As a result, Canada’s temporary foreign workers program has created a burgeoning, permanent and illegal underclass. A new class of vulnerable workers without status and deprived of government protections.

Go to http://letterfromtoronto.blogspot.com/ to read full article.

Session 1: Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio and the Philippines

We have invited a couple guest speakers to help start us off, but it’s not really about the speakers at all, but about the participants sharing their questions, thoughts, and knowledge with each other.

Who were these guys? Why are the considered heroes? Why are they also sometimes considered less than heroic? Why did they matter? And most importantly why do they still matter today?

You don’t have to know a lot about Philippine history, or the Philippines today, you just have to be curious and eager to discuss.

Speakers:

Caroline Mangosing, a descendant of Jose Rizal’s sister Olympia will share what she knows about her ancestor. Caroline is the Exec Director of the Kapisanan Philippine Centre for Arts and Culture. http://www.kapisanancentre.com/

Joe Rivera is a Toronto based writer, and former lawyer. He will be speaking about Andres Bonifacio. You can read his writing here: http://letterfromtoronto.blogspot.com

Sunday, 1 November 2009
1:00 PM (DON’T FORGET TO SET YOUR CLOCKS BACK ONE HOUR.)
SEAS Centre
606 Gerrard Street East (east of Broadview)

Click here to see map.

From the subway: Go to Broadview Station, take any southbound streetcar down Broadview, get off at Gerrard and walk one block east.

For more info - migranteON.youth@gmail.com