Philippine Government Pushing to Get US$9 Billion in Remittances from Overseas Workers

Media Statement
National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada/SIKLAB (OverseasFilipino Workers Group)
For immediate release: March 24, 2005

The National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC/national alliance of Filipino women advocacy groups) is critical of a recent release by the office of the Philippine President which projects that overseas Filipino workers (OFW) will remit a whopping US$9 billion for 2005.

The Philippine economy, currently in an extreme fiscal crisis and burdened by an insurmountable foreign debt, is unable to absorb its workers. The Philippine government developed the Labour Export Policy(LEP) – a means of selling its own people to countries abroad in orderto ensure foreign remittances. This policy guarantees the Philippines as the world’s largest migrant nation.

“Already, ten percent of the population of the Philippines live and work abroad, that accounts for about eight million Filipinos worldwide sending money home to the Philippines,” says Cecilia Diocson, Chairperson of NAPWC. “It is convenient for the Philippine government to set such a projection for Filipino workers around the world while their basic human rights go unprotected”, states Diocson.

“As OFW’s, we also see the intensifying militarization and human rights violations against our fellow progressive Filipino compatriots. These increasing violations put OFW’s in a compromising and uncomfortable position as they continue to send remittances home to ensure the survival of their families.”

“As overseas workers, we remitted $8.5 billion last year alone. This enormous amount being sent back to the Philippines helps prop up thePhilippine economy, encouraging the government to keep on sending more and more Filipinos abroad", asserts Diocson.

According to Migrante International, an alliance of people's organizations composed of overseas Filipinos and their families, every hour, around 100 Filipino workers are forced to work overseas and approximately 60 to 70 of them are women. In 2004, there were 894,661 Filipino workers exported to do the cheap and dangerous jobs.

“These workers are forced to leave the Philippines to work abroad and support their poverty-stricken families, yet the Philippine government does little to protect their rights,” states Glecy Duran of SIKLAB (Overseas Filipino workers organization), which is a member of NAPWC. “We come to countries like Canada where we end up doing the dirty and treacherous jobs that no one else wants,” continues Duran.

The Filipino community is the fourth largest visible minority group inCanada and the third largest in B.C. where they number about 60,000. It is estimated that there are over 8,000 domestic workers in B.C. and 93% are Filipino women.

Canada’s Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) is a perfect fit to the Philippines’s LEP. Under this program, domestic workers are forced to live-in their employer’s homes and are only granted temporary immigration status as “foreign workers.”

Earlier this month, several progressive members of the Philippineb Congress introduced a resolution calling for an investigation into the LCP after groups like NAPWC and SIKLAB have been actively calling for the Canadian government to scrap the LCP. The resolution recommended measures to protect the welfare of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) working as caregivers in Canada as well as in other countries.

SIKLAB will be gathering the Filipino community during a day-long consultation to celebrate its tenth anniversary on April 16, 2005 under the theme, “Halina at sama sama nating itaguyod ang karapatan at kapakanan ng migranteng Pilipino” (Come! Join us in upholding our rights and welfare as overseas Filipino workers). This day long event will bring the Filipino community together to share their experiences of migration and struggle.

For more information, contact Glecy Duran at #604-215-1103
or e-mail: siklab@kalayaancentre.net

GMA is Using the Abu Sayyaf to Justify the Imposition of Authoritarian Measures - Beltran

Mula sa Tanggapan ni Anakpawis Rep. Crispin Beltran
News Release March 18, 2005
House of Representatives, South Wing Rm 602931-6615
Ina Alleco R. Silverio, Chief of Staff
Email: paggawa@edsamail.com.ph, anakpawis2003@yahoo.com
Cellphone number 09213907362
Visit: www.geocities.com/ap_news

AFP and Abu Sayyaf's plans seem to be well-coordinated; crackdown against more Muslim and urban poor communities looming - Rep. Beltran Anakpawis Representative Crispin Beltran today said that the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) seem to be very privy to the plans and operations of the Abu Sayyaf, "This is what makes me incredulous as to why the military and police have not been able to capture and defeat the Abu Sayyaf. They all seem to know each other quite well - they're privy to each other's plans and operations. One could even say that their plans are very well coordinated. What are they keeping from the public? They seem to know everything already --- even where the ASG will strike and when," he said.

The veteran lawmaker said that investigations should continue into the alleged tie-ups between the ASG and the AFP - including the rub out of the three ASG leader Commanders Global, Kosovo and Robot earlier this week in the overkill military operations that took 22 lives.

Beltran said that now, more than ever, the public should maintain strong vigilance against the movements and operations of the military, even regarding its supposed plans against the threat of the Abu Sayyaf. "There are firm basis to argue that the military with the blessing of the Macapagal-Arroyo leadership is using the Abu Sayyaf to justify the imposition of more authoritarian measures, and to increase the powers of the military over the civilian population". All over Mindanao, the AFP have been arresting Muslim civilians on the merest suspicion of being ASG supporters or members, and all these civilians have been denied due process. Only the Muslim rights advocacy groups and human rights organizations are advocating for the release of these prisoners, and it's a massive blow against civil rights and liberties that so many of our Muslim brothers remain behind bars on unjust and illegal grounds," he said.

Beltran expressed certainty that with these latest announcement that the ASG is bent on wreaking terror this coming Holy Week, the military will implement more crackdown operations on various Muslim and urban poor communities all over the Metropolis, and even in the regions where there are Muslim residents.

"The Macapagal-Arroyo administration should be denounced for these attacks against Islam and the Muslim people. To justify the imposition of the US-dictated anti-terrorism measures such as the anti-terror bill and the national ID system, as well as the suspension of other legal rights protecting individuals' right to due process, the government and the AFP are fomenting discord between Muslims and Christians. Whatever strength or influence the ASG has is largely due to the barely secret support being given by the corrupt and ruthless elements in the AFP and the Malacanang cabinet. These, of course, include DILG secretary Angelo Reyes and National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales," he said.#

Noam Chomsky ... Still Furious at 76

Sunday Herald - 20 March 2005
By: Alan Taylor

ON my way to meet Noam Chomsky in Boston, I pick up a copy of The American Prospect, whose cover features snarling caricatures of US Vice-President Dick Cheney, and of Chomsky: the man dubbed by Bono "the Elvis of academia". Cheney is presented as the proverbial bull in an international china shop, Chomsky is portrayed by this "magazine of liberal intelligence" as the epitome of high- minded dove-ish, misguided idealism. Chomsky, of course, is well used to such attacks. For every cloying article by a disciple, there is a rocket from the enemy camp revelling in his perceived failings and undermining his reputation, denigrating his scholarship as a linguist and joyfully repeating statements which, when taken out of context, seem tinged with fanaticism.

To his credit, Chomsky puts them all on his website, whether it's TheNew Yorker describing him as "the devil's accountant" and "one of the greatest minds of the 20th century", or The Nation, which lampooned him as "a very familiar kind of academic hack" whose career has been"the product of a combination of self-promotion, abuse of detractors, and the fudging of his findings". He stands accused of asserting that every US President since Franklin D Roosevelt should have been impeached as war criminals; of supporting the murderous Pol Pot regimein Cambodia; and of comparing Israel to the Third Reich.

Leaving behind red-brick Harvard, where the winter snow is at last beginningto melt, one enters a vast industrial estate. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Chomsky has been professor of modern languages and linguistics since 1976, is home to more than 10,000 students, each ofwhom pays around $50,000 a year for the privilege of studying at America's self-styled "ideas factory".

Chomsky, who at 76 is technically retired, inhabits a suite of office so verflowing with foreign translations of his books and dusty academic journals. A photograph of the British philosopher Bertrand Russell hangs above a door, as a picture of the Pope might decorate a priest's study. The professor, his gatekeeper says, has gone for a walk, but he should return soon, if he can find his way back. Apparently, he is exploring a hitherto uncharted underground route on the campus.

I am shown into his office, which looks as if it has been burgled. Papers are piled high and strewn on every available surface. On a desk are photographs of his grandchildren. Chomsky, who has been married to the same woman for more than half a century, has three children, two daughters - one of whom works for Oxfam, the other is a teacher - and a son, who is a software engineer. When finally he does appear, I am informed that my allotted hour has shrunk magically to 45 minutes. Interviewers, it's intimated, are lining up like planes on a runway waiting for take-off. "Don't take it personally," I'm told.

I remind Chomsky of his 1990 visit to Scotland, when he spoke on "self-determination and power" at the Pearce Institute in Govan, Glasgow. "You've got to remind me what this is about," says Chomsky. This does not seem a promising start. I remind him that he is coming to Edinburgh to deliver a Gifford Lecture. "I know that," he says, rather testily. "But who are you?"

Chomsky is quietly impatient, his voice subdued and crackly. He has retained his wavy hair, which flops over his ears, and he dresses likea style-unconscious academic - black trainers, white socks, denims, charity-shop jumper. To some interviewers he comes across as bitter and despairing but others, including me, find a seam of laconic humour beneath the serious, restrained manner. When he starts to talk he often forgets to stop and in the course of our foreshortened hour he proves as difficult to interrupt as the Queen's Christmas message. Wind him up and away he goes.

But with Chomsky it's hard to know where to begin. Having spent more than 50 years at the MIT, he is the author of dozens of books and countless articles. A decade ago, Nature mentioned him in the same breath as Darwin and Descartes. Among his modern peers are Einstein, Picasso and Freud. Apparently, only Shakespeare and the Bible have been cited in scholarly publications more often than Chomsky has been.His influence is equally formidable, including generations of media students and the likes of John Pilger, Harold Pinter, Naomi Klein and James Kelman.

"If Chomsky has a specialist subject," wrote Kelman, "then some would argue it is not linguistics, nor the philosophy of language, rather it is US global policy, with particular reference to the dissemination of all related knowledge."

Not all of Chomsky's devotees would agree with Kelman. Some, such as author and columnist Paul Johnson, wish he'd stuck with linguistics and kept his nose out of politics. Through his study of language and, in particular, syntax, Chomsky is credited with transforming the way foreign languages are taught through his theory of a "universal grammar", and of "revolutionizing our view of the mind". Several ofhis books, including Syntactic Structures and Theory Of Syntax, published in 1957 and 1965 respectively, are invariably referred to as essential documents, though they're hardly accessible to the layman.

Meanwhile Manufacturing Consent, which he co-wrote with Edward Herman in 1988, is on every rookie journalist's reading list. Chomsky is the sceptic's sceptic, believing that the true nature of the US's role in the world is distorted and hidden from the American people by the corporate-owned media elite and federal government representatives who protect business interests in order to get re-elected or keep their jobs in the administration. Though he reluctantly supported Democrat John Kerry's failed pitch for the presidency last November, Chomsky is neither a Republican nor a Democrat. From his perspective, there's not a lot to choose between them; they're both "business parties".

We begin by talking about the piece in The American Prospect. "It's the journal of what they modestly call 'the decent left'," he says, oozing contempt. "It's kind of moderate social democrat and they see themselves as embattled. You know, caught between two powerful forces which are crushing them. One is Dick Cheney, representing the WhiteHouse, the Pentagon, one of the most powerful forces in history, and the other one - an equal and opposite force - is me. Do you think any intellectual or academic in history has ever received such praise? I mean, it's way beyond the Nobel Prize. I already got someone to put it on the website. It tells you something about their attitudes. They're pathetic, frightened, cowardly little people."

Interesting, I note, that though his face is on the magazine's cover, his name is nowhere to be seen in the piece. "Oh, no, no, no," Chomsky says, grinning at my naivety, "you can't mention it. You can't mention anything. You can't read anything. All you can do is report gossip. So you heard some gossip saying that I was in favour of Pol Pot or I support Osama Bin Laden. That I'm in favour of [Slobodan] Milosevic. And then you heard it at a dinner party so it must be true. My previous interviewer is doing a documentary mainly on Palestine. She just got a PhD at New York University. She was telling me that if she ever so much as mentioned my name her faculty members practically collapsed in terror. The idea that you could look at anything of mine was so frightening it couldn't happen. Which is standard. You can't think because that's too dangerous. Or you can't look at public opinion. You should see public opinion. It's amazing."

In what way? Just before last November's presidential election, he says, two of America's most prestigious public attitude monitoring institutions - the Program on International Policy Attitudes and the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations - published studies which showed that both political parties, the media and what he calls "the decent left" are far to the right of the American public on most major issues. "I'm right in the mainstream," says Chomsky. "And, of course, it wasn't reported."

"The major facts were just suppressed," he says. "Actually, these two reports were reported in two local papers in the country and a couple of op eds. That's it. In the entire country. The most important information possible right before an election."

What the reports showed, he explains, was that the American public are strongly opposed to the use of force, except in terms of the UN Charter, and in the face of imminent attack. "The public wants the UN, not the US, to take the lead in an international crisis," says Chomsky. "That includes reconstruction, security and so on in Iraq. A majority of the public is actually in favour of giving up the veto at the UN so the US would go along with the majority. An overwhelming majority supports the Kyoto Protocol. In fact, so enthusiastically that Bush voters assumed that he was in favour of it, because it was so obviously the right thing to do.

"The same huge majority is in favour of joining the International Criminal Court. A large majority of the population takes it to be a moral issue for the government to provide health care for everybody. It goes on and on like this. The public is far to the left of anything in the establishment."

Come the elections, he says, the public suffered from mass delusion. They didn't understand what the candidates stood for. What they were voting for was imagery. "Elections are run by the public relations industry; the same guys who sell toothpaste." Issues don't register on the radar. "You don't talk about what the candidates stand for, what you have is John Kerry goose-hunting and riding his motorcycle and George Bush pretending to be a simple kind of guy, who chops wood and takes care of his cattle.

"And plays golf?

"No, no. You don't push that too much, that's elitist. He is supposedto be an ordinary guy. Take a look at him! His sleeves are rolled up; he's just getting ready to go back to the ranch. You don't present him as what he is: a spoiled frat boy from Yale who only got somewhere because of his parents."

Chomsky, one suspects, could continue in this vein ad nauseam. Even now, at an age when most people would rather be in a gated Florida compound than constantly locking horns with the establishment, he persists in banging his head against closed doors. In the US, he is either a pariah or a prophet, "a kind of modern-day soothsayer", according to his biographer Robert Barsky.

"Unlike many leftists of his generation," says Barsky, "Chomsky never flirted with movements or organisations that were later revealed to be totalitarian, oppressive, exclusionary, anti-revolutionary, and elitist. He has very little to regret. His work, in fact, contains some of the most accurate analyses of this century."

Nobody can deny Chomsky's commitment to the cause of truth. His father was a renowned Hebrew scholar who emigrated from the Ukraine to theUnited States in 1913 to avoid being drafted into the army. His motherwas also a Hebrew scholar and wrote children's books. Chomsky was born in Philadelphia in 1928, and his precocity was nurtured at an experimental elementary school. By 10, he was reading the proofs of his father's edition of a 13th-century Hebrew grammar, and writing about the rise of fascism in Spain for his school newspaper. As a teenager he would often take a train from Philadelphia to New York to visit his uncle, who had a newspaper stand and a changeable political viewpoint. "First he was a follower of Trotsky," Chomsky says, "then he was an anti-Trotskyite. He also taught himself so much Freud he wound up as a lay psychoanalyst with a penthouse apartment."

At the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Chomsky met his mentor, Zellig Harris, a politically active professor of linguistics. It was Harris who dissuaded him from abandoning his studies and going to Israel where the new state was in formation. In 1956, at an MIT symposium on information theory, Chomsky presented a paper which overturned conventional linguistic wisdom. "Other linguists had said language had all the formal precision of mathematics," said George Miller, a psychologist who was in the audience, "but Chomsky was the first linguist to make good the claim."

Throughout his life, Chomsky has maintained his twin interests in politics and linguistics but it is the former which has consumed his energies in recent years and given him such a public profile. When he speaks, he says, crowds turn up in their thousands. In Sweden, the venue changed from a small hall to a football stadium. He turns down many more requests than he accepts. Rarely does he agree to appear on American television, because - as I can testify - he will not compromise by talking in sound bites. Proper discourse requires time to allow arguments to develop.

"You can only be on television if you have concision," he says. "That means you can say something between two commercials. That's a terrific technique of propaganda. On the rare occasions when I' m asked to be on television, I usually refuse for this reason. If you're gonna be asked a question, say, about terrorism and you're given three sentences between commercials, you've got two choices. You can repeat conventional ideology - you say, yeah, Iran supports terrorism. Or you can sound like you're from Neptune. You can say, yeah, the US is one of the leading terrorist states. The people have a right to ask what you mean. And so if it was a sane news channel - A-Jazeera, say - you could talk about it and explain what you mean. You're not allowed to do that in the United States."

On occasion, one suspects, Chomsky doth protest too much. Like fellow American "dissidents", such as Michael Moore and Gore Vidal, he may complain about the manipulative power of the media and government but he can hardly complain that he has been rendered voiceless. Indeed, these days the internet is a potent weapon in his armoury. He can't be both the most cited living person and marginalised.

There is little doubt, however, that his relentless monitoring of theAmerican media and his fundamental distrust of the denizens of Washington DC make him a formidable and eloquent adversary and, consequently, persona non grata in certain quarters. In general, he believes that the US should stay out of other countries' affairs. Bush's White House, he says, only believes in democracy when it serves American interests. The same guys who backed Saddam Hussein's brutal suppression of the Shi'ites are the ones who ordered the invasion ofIraq.

He is in full flow, bashing Paul Wolfowitz, the architect of the war in Iraq and US nominee for the presidency of the World Bank, rubbishing Tony Blair - "I suppose Hitler believed what he was saying too" - and recalling how, in 1985, Ronald Reagan declared a national emergency because he thought Nicaragua was about to march into Texas, when his assistant pokes her head round his door and says my 45-minute hour is up. On the way out, Chomsky draws my attention to a ghoulish painting hidden behind a filing cabinet.

"It's a terrific Rorschach test," he says menacingly. "When I ask people from North America what it is, nobody knows. When I ask people from South America, everybody knows. If you ask people from Europe, maybe 10% know. What it is, is Archbishop Romero on the 25th anniversary of his assassination [in El Salvador], six Latin American intellectuals - Jesuits - who were also murdered, all by elite forces armed and trained by the United States who also killed another 70,000people. Nobody knows a thing about it.

"Suppose it had been in Czechoslovakia. Suppose the Russians had murdered an archbishop and killed [Vaclav] Havel and half-a-dozen of his associates. Would we know about it? Yeah. We probably would have nuked them. But when we do it, it doesn't exist. It reminds me of the world."

Noam Chomsky will give the Gifford Lecture - Illegal but Legitimate: A Dubious Doctrine for the Times - at the McEwan Hall, Edinburgh, at5.15 pm on Tuesday, March 22, 2005

INSTEAD OF VAT HIKE GO AFTER EVADERS, IMPROVE COLLECTION

MEDIA RELEASE
IBON Foundation, Inc.
3/F SCC Bldg 4427 Interior Old Sta Mesa, Manila, Philippines
Tel. +632 713-2729, +632 713-2737 E-mail: media@ibon.org
References: Rosario Bella Guzman (Executive Director)
Antonio Tujan (Research Director)
March 16, 2005

Instead of hoping for the approval of the value-added tax (VAT) bill before Senate takes its recess, government can work on other pro-people revenue measures like improving tax collection and going after tax evaders.

Research group IBON Foundation advises the Arroyo administration not to be too fixated on the VAT bill approval because there are other ways for government to raise revenues. One is to plug leakages in tax collection, as government data reveals that the average VAT leakage for the period of 1998 to 2002 was P41.6 billion. This is 30% of the country’s potential tax due.

Government data also shows that there is a high level of tax evasion among corporate taxpayers, which amounted to an annual average of P54 billion, or a tax evasion rate of 38% of potential tax due. Going after tax evaders, and thus improving direct taxation is a more reasonable measure than pushing for indirect taxation schemes like VAT.

VAT itself is inherently inequitable due to its indirect nature. It imposes a uniform tax rate on all taxpayers regardless of their incomes or ability to pay. This goes against the basic principle of taxation that it must be equitable. Worse, the income from these taxes does not go back to taxpayers in the form of social services, but to debt payment.

The Arroyo administration has vowed to match the public’s sacrifice of paying higher taxes with a commitment to cut government excess spending, fight graft and corruption and prosecute tax cheats. But these are policies that government should be pursuing rather than implementing new tax measures. It is unjust for government to offer its commitment to these policies in exchange for the public’s support for a VAT increase.

Given the increasing difficulty of making ends meet as prices continue to rise and wages remain stagnant, any additional tax burden would only serve to drive the majority of the people further into poverty and debt. Thus aside from improving tax collection and going after tax evaders, government should explore other pro-people measures like reforming its debt management, addressing graft and corruption and reimposing tariffs to specially-sensitive products. (end)

State Terrorism

From: SOUNDING BOARD
By: JOAQUIN G. BERNAS, SJ

We should not forget that states can perpetrate more horrifying terror. Remember Samar, Dresden, Hiroshima.

Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position ofdisparity [US military-economic supremacy]. . . To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming. . . . We should cease to talk about vague and. . . unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization.

Theday is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better." -- George Kennan, Director of Policy Planning, US StateDepartment, 1948.

Terrorism is a favorite topic especially after 9/11 when more than 3,000 innocent lives perished in a flash in New York. It was terrorism perpetrated by nonstate agents. We should not forget that states can perpetrate more horrifying terror. The other night I watched the The Fog of War, an award-winning documentary where former US secretary of defense Robert McNamara was the main actor. It was a reminder of the horrors of World War II.

Early in the documentary McNamara narrated how in 1962 the UnitedStates was within a hair-breadth away from nuclear war where one ofthe options was the complete annihilation of Cuba. Fortunately, diplomacy prevented it. But we need to recall horrors that had happened before.

Remember Dresden. In February 1945, within less than 14 hours Dresden, a defenseless German city, was scorched by military bombers killing about a third of its inhabitants, possibly half-a-million innocent lives.

Remember Tokyo and other Japanese cities. Thousands of people perished under rain of firebombs dropped by US bombers. This was even beforeNagasaki and Hiroshima. When Hiroshima and Nagasaki's time came150,000 died instantly and thousands more by the slow, horrible death from radiation.

The US won the war. Japan surrendered. Germany, too, was defeated.

Military leaders of Germany and Japan were tried for war crimes. ButRobert McNamara himself observed that, if the United States had lost the war, American leaders would have been tried for war crimes!

It was happening even before World War II. In 1899 Filipinos fought American soldiers equipped with superior firepower. The death toll among Filipinos was enormous, and some provinces had horror stories to tell. Samar, for instance, had a General Smith.

A historian reports the testimony of a Marine Major: "The major said that General Smith instructed [a soldier] to kill and burn, and said that the more he killed and burned the better pleased he would be; that it was no time to take prisoners, and that he was to make Samar a howling wilderness.

"Major Waller asked General Smith to define the age limit for killing, and he replied 'Everything over ten."

Mark Twain commented: "We have pacified some thousands of the islanders and buried them; destroyed their fields; burned their villages, and turned their widows and orphans out-of-doors; furnished heartbreak by exile to some dozens of disagreeable patriots; subjugated the remaining 10 millions by benevolent assimilation, which is the pious new name of the musket; we have acquired property in the 300 concubines and other slaves of our business partner, the Sultan of Sulu, and hoisted our protecting flag over that swag. " And so, by these Providences of God -- and the phrase is the government's, not mine -- we are a World Power."

Is terrorism just brutal, unthinking violence? "No. Experts agree thatthere is almost always a strategy behind terrorist actions. Whether it takes the form of bombings, shootings, hijackings, or assassinations, terrorism is neither random, spontaneous, nor blind; it is a deliberate use of violence against civilians for political or religious ends." And states can be the more dangerous terrorists. ###

The Filipino Women’s Century-Old Struggle for National Liberation

The struggle of Filipino women for national liberation turns a century this month. For more than a century, from the revolutionary contributions of the woman General Gabriela Silang against colonialism to the very first suffragist organization founded in 1905, the women’s liberation movement in the Philippines has made considerable development in terms of advancing the cause of women against feudal and colonial oppression and exploitation.

by: AVA DANLOG
Bulatlat/Vol. V, No. 5/March 6-12, 2005

For this year, militant women’s groups, led by Gabriela, the largest multi-sectoral alliance of women’s organizations in the country, launch a campaign against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her anti-national, anti-people and anti-women policies.

Historical significance

International Women’s Day falls on March 8 because of its historical significance in women activism. It was in March 8, 1957 when women workers of garment factories in New York marched to protest against low wages, 12-hour daily work schedule and the oppressive working conditions. This was prompted by the death of women and children when a garment factory caught fire because they were locked inside at night. The demonstration was violently dispersed.

It was in March 8, 1908 that marked the extensive protest of women against capitalist exploitation. On this day, 30,000 women workers marched to call for more humane working conditions and legislation against child labor and the right to suffrage of women.

March 8 was then proclaimed as International Women’s Day in 1977, when the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution mandating the observance of International Women’s Day by its member nations. But as early as 1910, international labor groups have paid tribute to women’s heroic struggles by celebrating March 8 as International Women’s Day, several decades before the UN would do so.

In the Philippines, the first feminist organization, Asociacion Feminista Filipina, was established in 1905. Although it focused largely on social issues, such as maternal and child care, prostitution and gambling, and consisted mainly of women from the upper and middle classes, its birth signaled the awakening of the Filipino women’s feminist consciousness and later paved the way for the establishment of militant and political women’s groups.

The first observance of International Women’s Day in the country was in 1971 when Makibaka (Makabayang Kilusan ng Bagong Kababaihan or Patriotic Movement of Modern Women) and Katipunan (Katipunan ng Bagong Kababaihan or Association of Modern Women) mobilized women in protest of poverty.

When martial law was declared, mass demonstrations were prohibited and Makibaka went underground, becoming one of the first organizations to be a member of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). It was only in 1984 when militant March 8 commemorations once again commenced, spearheaded by Gabriela.

Advances in the women’s movement

According to Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Liza Maza, herself a former Gabriela secretary general, the fact that women are being organized and the militancy of women is being sustained, are manifestations of the movement’s development, especially since the patriarchal value system is deeply rooted in the Filipino culture.

She added, “There is now legislation on defining violence against women as a crime. So in that sense, the women’s movement, I think that is not just an achievement on legislation, but largely the achievement of the women’s movement that have lobbied and advocated for enshrining the rights of women in the law.”

According to Joms Salvador, national chairperson of GABRIELA Youth, the movement has reached a lot in terms of popularizing the cause. More women’s organizations are established. Internationally, the Philippine experience in organizing women is looked upon. Salvador adds that the diversity of women organizing in the country is a measure of how stable and strong the women’s movement is.

Women’s situation

Still, feudal and foreign oppression and exploitation of women continue. Majority of women, who are rural-based, do not enjoy the right to own land. In a study conducted by Amihan (National Federation of Peasant Women), the disparity can run as high as 10 centavos for a woman agricultural worker for every peso that a man earns.

The same trend applies to female workers who are victims of contractualization and poor working conditions, usually employed in the manufacturing and service sectors. Because of retrenchments and lax labor laws in these sectors, more and more women are forced to emigrate. This, aside from the added burden to women for their traditional roles as homemakers.

In a study conducted by Gabriela, seven out of 10 Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) are female, 44 percent of whom are employed in the service sector while 33 percent is in the entertainment sector. The miserable situation of female OFWs is heightened by racial discrimination and racism.

However, the exploitation of women OFWs roots not just from the racial discrimination in foreign countries or the gender-based oppression, but also from the factors that force them to leave the country: widespread poverty and the government’s labor export policy.

The emigration of females is encouraged by the labor export policy of the Arroyo administration that contributes to the massive global sex trade and modern-day slavery of Filipino women and children, according to Ninotchka Rosca of the Purple Rose Campaign.

Under the Arroyo administration, Filipinos are exported as sex commodity to nearly 200 countries and is a major exporter of women as virtual sex slaves around the world. Almost 600,000 Filipino women are trafficked worldwide under the euphemisms “Guest Relations Officer,” “entertainer” and “cultural dancer.”

Alarmingly, incidences of violence against women and children have risen, particularly rape and sexual abuse. Ten years ago, statistics show that six women and children are raped daily. Last year the figure doubled as 12 women and children become victims of sexual abuse daily. Domestic violence remains widespread with 18 women and children becoming victims of battering daily. This number would surely rise with the current economic crisis. Studies reveal that majority of urban-based domestic violence center on money. In a separate study, more incidences of domestic violence happen during the months of December and May wherein money is needed for the holiday season and the incoming school year.

Economic crisis as the most urgent issue

Of all the issues faced by women, the most pressing would be the economic crisis. According to Maza, the crisis has specific impact on women because they are looked upon as secondary providers. Their contribution in production is valued less than that of men’s.

They don’t receive social services like health and education. And because of their traditional roles, they are burdened with stretching every peso to make both ends meet.

“As one becomes so economically disempowered, the more you become victims of violence. Especially now that poverty is so acute, more violence is present, even in the homes,” she adds.

The passage of the additional 2 percent Value Added Tax (VAT) would then certainly make it harder for women. Gabriela listed seven basic commodities whose prices will surely rise: rice, milk, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), sugar, coffee, soap and cooking oil. All these are commodities that concern mothers and housewives.

For these reasons, the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day call on militancy to oppose the anti-national, anti-people and anti-women policies of the Arroyo administration.

Struggle for national liberation, too

According to Maza, it is important to account the long years of women’s struggles and triumphs in order for society to look into the future and see what else needs to be done. It is a testament to how the women’s movement developed in the Philippines as against the feminist construct with the sole perspective of individual rights.

“I think it is high time to look at it as an overall achievement of women, to look into this undeveloped perspective that the Filipino women have really contributed a lot in our struggle for freedom and democracy and the struggle for the women’s empowerment and the recognition of women’s rights and welfare,” she adds.

The annual observation of International Women’s Day is an effective venue for the re-education of society in understanding our history to discern the historical roots of gender oppression in the country and the role of women in history, Maza also said. The main enemy of women and of the oppressed and exploited peoples is US imperialism which preserves fascism and national, religious and racial chauvinism in the country through the family, religion, state and the media. All these aim to perpetuate the degradation of women and further divide the working class and the people at large, she added.

© 2004 Bulatlat ■ Alipato Publications

Filipino Women Find No Comfort from a Woman President

Edith Gallardo sells kakanin (rice cakes) for a living. Sometimes, she would also sell pancit and boiled peanuts to earn more money. She earns an average of P100–P150 a day. For Gallardo and other impoverished Filipino women, having a woman president is no solace. She believes that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has done nothing to lift Filipino women from poverty and exploitation.

BY RONALYN V. OLEA
Bulatlat/Vol. V, No. 5/ March 6-12, 2005

Women from different sectors of Philippine society presented their woes during a forum called Ulat Lila (Purple Report) organized by the Center for Women’s Resources (CWR), March 4.

As wives and mothers, women are always the first to bear the brunt of economic devastation. Based on the 2003 Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES), three out of five Filipino families live a hand-to-mouth existence.

Inflation rate was pegged at 7.4 percent at the end of 2004, the highest in six years. Meanwhile, the real value of the peso stands at P0.53 due to increases in prices of commodities and services.

In 2004, the price of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) increased 12 times, with a total increase of P144.65 per 11-kg cylinder. The price of LPG increased by P80 from January 2004 to February 2005.

Water rates have also risen. Maynilad jacked up its rate by 36 percent and Manila Water by 21 percent. Electricity rates also went up. A family consuming 120 kwh to 200 kwh of electricity a month pays 34 percent higher. Those who consume 1000 kwh a month pay 28 percent more.

Gertrude Libang, executive director of the Center for Women’s Resources (CWR), said that the impending Value-Added Tax (VAT) increase would burden the consumers even more. “Since the consumer is at the end of the chain with no one to pass the VAT to, she/he ends up taking up the VAT.”

An example cited by Libang is a can of sardines. With VAT at 10 percent, a can of sardines costs P9.87. At 12 percent, the price goes up to P10.60 per can.

Women workers

Unemployment rate among women was 11.7 percent as of October 2004. Only two out of five workers are women. Women’s labor force participation rate is only 50 percent as against men’s 83 percent. Half of the women work force are therefore part of the reserved labor force.

Nanette Miranda, spokesperson of the Koalisyon Laban sa Kontraktwalisasyon (Coalition Against Contractualization) criticized the Macapagal-Arroyo government for not doing anything about the widespread contractualization of labor which, she said, affects most women workers.

Twenty-five percent of the workers in the industrial and service sectors are non-regular workers. According to the labor department, there are 651,000 non-regular workers in 2003. Forty-seven percent or 307,000 are contractuals who work in construction projects, real estate, renting and business activities. Twenty-four percent or 159,000 are casual workers in hotels and restaurants. Probationary workers account for 18 percent or 120,000 of non-regular workers. There are 67,000 apprentices/learners and seasonal workers.

Miranda revealed that women working in factories work more than eight hours a day to meet the company’s quota. She also cited the pregnancy test as an additional requirement for work.

“Mas tumitindi ang kalagayan ng mga manggagawang kababaihan sa ilalim ng babaeng presidente,” (The situation of the women workers and the workers in general has worsened under a woman president) Miranda said.

Peasant women

According to the National Statistics Office (NSO), there were 11.8 million agricultural workers and farmers as of October 2004. The average wage of women in agricultural sector, based on Bureau of Agricultural Statistics’ report, is P127.98. This amount is 15 percent less than the wage of their male counterparts.

Zen Soriano, spokesperson of the Amihan (National Federation of Peasant Women), complained they hardly feel the country’s supposed “economic growth.” “Binibili sa murang halaga ang aming ani kahit napakataas ng aming gastos. Hindi kami ang nakakapagpresyo kundi ang mga traders.” (Our products are bought at low prices. It is not us who determine the price of our products but the traders.)

Soriano also said that ordinary farmers like her do not benefit from the Gloria rice. The said hybrid rice, Soriano said, needs inputs they cannot afford to buy. “Wala namang subsidyong ibinibigay sa amin kaya walang saysay ang Gloria rice.” (We do not get any subsidy from the government. Gloria rice is senseless for the poor farmers.)

The peasant leader also said the government has failed to implement a genuine agrarian reform program. The Department of Agrarian Reform, now called Department of Land Reform (DLR), claimed 3.37 million hectares of land were distributed in 30 years. However, data from the department do not include re-claimed emancipation patents and certificate of land ownership awards (CLOA). Based on government data, 75 percent of the beneficiaries are men.

Soriano also hit Macapagal-Arroyo’s plan of allotting one to two million hectares of land for agri-business.

“Gusto nila ayusin ang Konsitusyon para paaygan ang 100% foreign ownership.” (They want to change the Constitution to allow 100 percent foreign ownership of land.)

Soriano related that some mothers leave their families to work as domestic helpers in the cities in order to augment the limited income. “Ang mga nanay hahanap ng paraan para mabuhay ang pamilya. Iiwan ang mga anak sa kamag-anak, kapitbahay. Minsan, naaabuso ang aming mga anak na babae.” (Mothers will find ways to support the family. They will leave their children to relatives, neighbors. In some cases, our daughters are subjected to abuse.)

The lifting of restrictions on rice importation, Soriano said, is tantamount of depriving them of their livelihood. “Pinapatay ni GMA ang kabuhayan natin.” (GMA is killing our livelihood sources.)

Migrant women

Connie Bragas-Regalado, chairperson of the Migrante International, said that 65 percent of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are women, mostly in the service sector. Every day, 3,000 Filipinos leave the country to work abroad.

Fifteen percent of the Filipino families are dependent on OFW remittances. The World Bank estimates OFWs remit USD 8 billion annually.

Regalado herself worked as a domestic helper in Hong Kong for 13 years. She said the Hong Kong government has persistently pushed for their wage cut. “We work for 12-16 hours a day,” she said, usually receiving a monthly salary of P18,000. Of this, they send home P15,000.

Regalado also revealed that after 9/11, there has been an intensified crackdown on illegal immigrants in many countries. Many Filipinos have been detained. This, she said, have resulted in massive deportation. However, the Philippine government has only promised to provide free passports and could not provide job opportunities for the returning OFWs.

Urban poor

Edith Gallardo of the Samahan ng Maralitang Kababaihang Nagkakaisa (Samakana or Organization of United Urban Poor Women)-Tatalon Chapter also shares Regalado’s sentiments. Gallardo sells kakanin (rice cakes) for a living. Sometimes, she would also sell pancit and boiled peanuts. She earns P100–P150 a day.

Gallardo said they usually have sardinas and noodles for meal. Like any other family living in an urban poor community, they are constantly threatened of demolition.

Based on the estimates by the National Housing Authority, there are 1.41 million informal settlers in the country. Fifty-two percent of this can be found in the National Capital Region.

The budget of the government for housing is a measly P2.74 billion in 2004, accounting for only 0.30 percent of the national budget. The Macapagal-Arroyo government promised to build 1.2 million houses for the poor. In her three-year term, the government only accomplished 73.6 percent of its target or 882,823 units. The figure is only 25 percent of the total house units needed by the urban poor.

Gallardo also related the death of her sick mother. “Dinala ko siya sa public hospital, hiningan ako ng P1,000 pandeposito. Saan ko po kukunin iyon? Namatay siya na hindi nagagamot.” (I took her to a public hospital. I was asked to deposit P1,000. Where would I get that? My mother died without receiving any treatment.)

Gallardo vowed, “Pag nakita ko si Gloria, hindi ko siya patatawarin, siya ang pumatay sa aking nanay.” (When I see Gloria [Macapagal-Arroyo], I will not forgive her. She was the one who killed my mother.)

Violence against women

The violence against women continues. In 2004, there were 2,005 cases of sexual abuse reported to the Philippine National Police (PNP). Documented cases of rape reached 1,228. Meanwhile, cases of sex trafficking and white slavery increased four times from 2003 to 2004.

Figures from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) on the other hand are higher. Based on its records, there were 11,526 cases of violence against women and children in 2004. Ninety percent of the cases filed before the DSWD were cases of sexual abuse against girls. Of the 3,346 rape cases, 31 percent were cases of incest.

Facing the Challenges

Gertrude Libang, executive director of the Center for Women’s Resources (CWR), said, “The challenge for women now is how to course the tide in their favor. Each issue indicates a formidable task of reckoning and action, and clearly, there are a lot of things to be done. Women should recognize that they play a decisive role in the transformation of the Philippine society.”

She ends, “The feudal view has portrayed women as the hand that rocks the cradle. But in this era and in this trying moment in our country, women is also the same hand that wields half of the power of the people. President Macapagal-Arroyo should realize this.”

© 2004 Bulatlat ■ Alipato Publications