Center for Women's Resources (CWR)

Justice for “Comfort Women” and All Victims of Military Sexual Violence! Stop Financing Militarism and War! End Military Spending That Fuels Violence Against Women!

Center for Women's Resources Solidarity, Statements and Media Releases August 14, 2026August 14, 2026 0 Comment

The Center for Women’s Resources (CWR) joins women and peoples around the world in a global day of action to remember the victims and survivors of war and in demanding justice for “comfort women”. The Japanese Imperial Army’s “comfort women” system remains one of the clearest examples of state-sanctioned military sexual slavery. Yet even more than 80 years after the end of World War II, survivors in the Philippines and across Asia continue to await genuine justice, including an official apology, reparations, and recognition of their history.

CWR condemns Japan’s continuing historical revisionism and its growing remilitarization, including its expanding military cooperation with the Philippines through the Philippine-Japanese Reciprocal Access Agreement. The strengthening of military alliances and foreign military access must not come at the expense of women’s rights, community safety, and national sovereignty.

Militarization does not bring genuine security for women and communities. Instead, it deepens violence, displacement, and insecurity. The legacy of military sexual violence in the Philippines stretches from the abuses committed by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II, to the documented history of violence surrounding US military bases, and to present-day reports of cases of displacement, harassment, exploitation, and sexual violence in militarized communities. Across these periods, women have borne a disproportionate share of the social and economic costs of militarization.

The Philippine government’s continued increase in military spending, alongside agreements and financing arrangements that expand the presence and access of foreign militaries, raises serious concerns about the safety and welfare of Filipino women and their communities. Militarization diverts public resources away from essential social services while creating environments where women and other vulnerable sectors may face heightened risks of abuse and exploitation.

Last year, the United States government approved a $2.5 billion Foreign Military Financing (FMF) grant package for the Philippines covering fiscal years 2026 to 2030, amounting to roughly $500 million annually. At the same time, the Marcos Jr. administration is alloting ₱452.4 billion for military spending in 2027, a 6.8% increase from the previous year’s military budget. CWR calls into question how these massive allocations for military expansion will further affect communities already facing poverty, displacement, and insecurity, and warns that increased militarization can further expose women to harassment, trafficking, sexual violence, and other forms of abuse.

The commemoration of the victims and survivors of World War II must not be reduced to remembering the past while ignoring the conditions that continue to enable military violence against women today. The experiences of “comfort women” survivors remind us that women’s bodies have repeatedly been treated as instruments of war and militarization.

CWR calls for an end to militarization, imperialist wars, and all forms of military sexual violence. We demand justice for the comfort women and accountability from states responsible for wartime and military sexual violence, including meaningful reparations, official recognition, and guarantees that such abuses will not be repeated.

We reject the use of women’s bodies and communities as collateral in military alliances and war economies. Public funds must serve the people, not the expansion of military power and foreign military interests. Genuine peace requires social justice, women’s rights, accountability, and respect for national sovereignty, not ever-increasing military budgets and foreign military presence. #

Hands Off Jacq Ruiz! Defend the Right to Organize and Protest!

The Center for Women’s Resources (CWR) expresses its solidarity with veteran child rights advocate and woman labor organizer Jacqueline “Jacq” Ruiz of the Kilusan ng Manggagawang Kababaihan (KMK or Women Workers’ Movement) and Jerome Adonis, Chairperson of Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU or May First Movement), following the issuance of warrants of arrest against them in connection with a workers’ rights protest on May 1, 2026.

We reaffirm that the rights to peaceful assembly, freedom of expression, and freedom of association are fundamental democratic rights. The right of workers to organize, collectively bargain and engage in peaceful collective action are protected under Philippine law and international human rights standards.

The filing of charges under Article 153 of the Philippine Revised Penal Code in relation to alleged public disturbances, is deeply concerning. The use of criminal charges against workers and their advocates for exercising their legitimate democratic rights constitutes judicial harassment and contributes to the broader criminalization of labor organizing, protest, and dissent.

Workers’ demands for decent wages, secure employment, safe workplaces and dignified working conditions are not threats to public order. They are legitimate demands rooted in the basic rights and aspirations of working people. Peaceful protest is not a crime, and raising one’s voice against unjust conditions should never be grounds for persecution.

What truly threatens the welfare and security of working people is a system that continues to leave millions struggling with low wages, precarious employment, rising costs of living and declining living conditions– while those who challenge these conditions are harassed, intimidated and criminalized. The criminalization of labor leaders and advocates does not address the conditions that drive the workers to protest. Instead, it suppresses the voices that call attention to these injustices.

We are particularly concerned by the targeting of Jacq as a woman labor organizer. Women workers experience exploitation and violations of their labor rights while continuing to shoulder a disproportionate share of care responsibilities. Women’s organizations and women workers’ groups play a vital role in organizing communities, asserting labor rights, and challenging the conditions that perpetuate inequality in workplaces, communities , and society.

The criminalization of women organizers carries a distinct and gendered impact. It threatens not only their safety, security, and freedom, but also creates a chilling effect on women’s participation in collective action. Jacq’s decades of advocacy for children’s and women’s rights, as well as her organizing for workers and vulnerable communities, should never be weaponized against her. Her long-standing commitment to defending the rights of others is not a crime.

It is deeply unbecoming of a government that presents itself as a champion of women’s rights and labor rights to respond to women workers and labor organizers with harassment, criminalization, and judicial persecution. The treatment of Jacq, Jerome, and other labor organizers exposes the widening gap between the government’s rhetoric and its actions.

More seriously, these actions expose the government’s increasingly repressive and authoritarian approach to dissent. A government that claims to uphold women’s and workers’ rights must protect those who exercise these rights—not punish them.

CWR stands firmly with Jacq, Jerome, and all workers and organizers facing harassment and persecution for exercising their fundamental rights. We demand the immediate withdrawal of the charges against them and an end to the judicial harassment of labor leaders, activists, and human rights defenders in the Philippines.

We call on our networks, allies, and human rights organizations to stand in solidarity with Jacq, Jerome, and all workers and organizers facing criminalization for defending their rights. #

World Bank’s ‘upper middle-income’ label masks poverty and inequality that Filipino women face – CWR

Center for Women's Resources Statements and Media Releases July 7, 2026July 10, 2026 0 Comment

The Center for Women’s Resources (CWR) asserted that the World Bank’s reclassification of the Philippines as an upper middle-income country (UMIC) should not be interpreted as proof that the lives of Filipino women have substantially improved.

According to CWR, the World Bank’s income classification is based primarily on gross national income (GNI) per capita—an average income measure that fails to capture income inequality, poverty, labor conditions, or women’s economic realities.

CWR contends that despite the country’s higher income classification, millions of Filipino women continue to face low wages, insecure and informal employment, rising living costs, and limited access to quality public services. The organization argues that the designation creates an illusion of development while overlooking the structural inequalities that persist in Philippine society.

“The problem with relying on an average income measure is that averages conceal inequality,” CWR Executive Director Cham Perez explained. “The enormous wealth accumulated by a handful of billionaires raises the country’s average income, but this does not mean that ordinary workers are earning more or living better.”

Perez noted that the disparity between the country’s wealthiest individuals and ordinary workers illustrates the limitations of income-based classifications. While billionaires like Enrique Razon and Ramon Ang have amassed fortunes worth billions of dollars, millions of Filipino workers continue to survive on wages that barely cover the cost of daily necessities. A minimum wage earner in Metro Manila receiving ₱695 a day remains worlds apart from the country’s wealthiest business elites, yet both are reflected in the same national average used to determine the country’s income classification.

CWR said this disconnect is reflected across multiple social and economic indicators.

Women’s labor force participation remains only 52.3% compared with 75.2% for men, indicating that millions of women continue to face barriers to paid employment. Among those who are employed, many remain concentrated in low-paying and precarious occupations, including domestic work, vending, home-based work, gig work, and export-oriented manufacturing, where contractualization, low wages, and limited social protection remain widespread.

CWR estimates that well over 20 million Filipino women continue to experience economic insecurity because of insufficient income, unstable employment, lack of livelihood opportunities, or exclusion from paid work due to caregiving responsibilities.

CWR also questioned the government’s employment statistics, noting that anyone who worked for at least an hour during the reference week is officially counted as employed. While employment rates may appear favorable on paper, they often conceal the realities of underemployment, irregular work, and wages that remain insufficient to meet a family’s basic needs.

“The real condition of workers cannot be measured simply by employment figures,” Perez said. “Having a job does not mean having a decent livelihood. Millions of Filipinos are working but remain poor because their wages are too low, their jobs are insecure, or they cannot find enough hours of work.”

These realities are reflected in people’s own assessment of their living conditions. The January 2026 Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey showed that 51% of Filipino families, or an estimated 14.3 million households, consider themselves poor, a clear indication of the discrepancy between macroeconomic indicators and people’s lived experiences.

Women also continue to face persistent wage inequality. The gender wage gap is largest in occupations where women are highly concentrated, at 26.2% for service and sales workers and 29.4% for workers in elementary occupations, demonstrating how occupational segregation continues to depress women’s earnings.

These conditions are rooted in decades of neoliberal policies that prioritize foreign investment, trade liberalization, deregulation, and privatization over building domestic industries and modernizing agriculture, according to CWR. The organization noted that the same international financial institutions that now classify the Philippines as an upper middle-income country have long promoted these policies through development lending and policy prescriptions.

“Instead of building a strong domestic industrial base and a productive agricultural sector, these policies have encouraged greater dependence on foreign investment, imports, labor export, and cheap Filipino labor,” Perez said. “The result has been an economy that generates wealth for corporations and a small elite while leaving millions of workers – especially women – in precarious employment, low-paying jobs, and economic insecurity.”

Perez also warned that the country’s upgraded income status comes amid a growing public debt burden. Outstanding national government debt reached ₱17.71 trillion by the end of 2025 and is projected to approach ₱19 trillion by the end of 2026. This year alone, approximately ₱950 billion will be spent on debt servicing – resources that could otherwise be invested in health care, education, childcare, housing, and social protection.

CWR further cautioned that, as an upper middle-income country, the Philippines may gradually lose access to concessional financing, potentially increasing borrowing costs without addressing the structural causes of poverty and inequality.

“Development cannot be measured simply by crossing an income threshold,” Perez said. “The real question is whether economic growth has translated into secure livelihoods, living wages, affordable food, quality education, accessible health care, and a life of dignity for Filipino women and their families.”

Rather than celebrating a statistical milestone, CWR called on the Marcos Jr. administration to pursue a development strategy anchored in national industrialization, genuine agrarian reform, living wages, strengthened labor rights, universal social protection, expanded public care services, and gender-responsive public investments. The organization also urged the government to adopt a more progressive fiscal system that ensures those with the greatest wealth contribute a greater share toward financing public services.

“Women should not be asked to measure progress through economic statistics that fail to reflect their everyday realities,” Perez concluded. “Real development occurs only when women are free from poverty, have decent and secure jobs, receive equal pay for equal work, and enjoy access to quality public services.”

The Real Crisis: Government Neglect, Not Youth Criminality

Center for Women's Resources Statements and Media Releases June 26, 2026June 26, 2026 0 Comment

The recent school shooting in Tacloban, Leyte, is a tragedy that demands accountability – not from children, but from a government that has long neglected the needs of Filipino youth. Rather than being treated as an isolated incident, this tragedy exposes deep systemic failures that continue to place young people at risk.

Millions of Filipinos lack access to quality education, while our schools continue to suffer from chronic shortages of classrooms, facilities, guidance counselors, and mental health services. Nearly 5 million youth are out of school and more than 24 million Filipinos are not functionally literate. Yet instead of addressing these long-standing problems, the government’s response remains one of neglect, underfunding, and punitive policies.

We reject any attempt to exploit this tragedy to justify harsher punishments against children. The real crisis is not a lack of criminalization, but the state’s failure to fulfill its responsibility to provide quality education, accessible mental health care, social protection, and meaningful opportunities for young people.

Likewise, proposals to lower the age of criminal responsibility will neither address the root causes of violence nor prevent similar tragedies from happening again. Nor will deploying more police in schools make students safer. Schools should be spaces of learning, growth, critical thinking, and care — not environments defined by surveillance, fear, and militarization. Accountability must also be demanded from adults entrusted with firearms. The weapons used in this incident belonged to adult gun owners, and responsibility cannot be shifted solely onto the minors.

Without addressing poverty, inadequate access to mental health services, and the social exclusion experienced by many young people, punitive measures and increased militarization will only exacerbate feelings of alienation and despair. Focusing on criminalizing children also diverts attention from those who bear the greater responsibility for ensuring safe and supportive learning environments: governments, communities, and adults entrusted with the welfare of children. True prevention requires a holistic approach that centers on social justice, equity, and empowerment of the youth.

What students truly need are guidance counselors, mental health professionals, social workers, effective child protection mechanisms, libraries, and adequate school facilities that nurture their well-being and development.

Children need guidance, care, and opportunities – not fear and punishment. Schools need adequate funding, qualified counselors, libraries, and safe learning environments. Communities need decent jobs, accessible social services, and hope for the future.

Safe schools are built through education, care, and social justice — not through fear, militarization, and criminalization.

The fight for safe schools is inseparable from the fight for a genuinely accessible, inclusive, and people-oriented education system.

From Protectors to Perpetrators: Women’s group slams rising state-perpetrated VAW cases, demands accountability and an end to impunity

Center for Women's Resources In the News May 13, 2026May 13, 2026 0 Comment

The Center for Women’s Resources (CWR), a research and training institution advancing women’s rights, condemns the continuing rise in violence against women (VAW) perpetrated by men in uniform, including members of the police and military, and calls for urgent action to end impunity within state security institutions.

CWR’s monitoring documented at least 40 cases of state-perpetrated VAW from 2022 to 2025. These cases involved physical assault, rape, sexual harassment, molestation, domestic abuse, and the killing of women and children. In 2025 alone, reports involving abusive police and military personnel surfaced almost monthly, reflecting what women’s groups describe as a deeply entrenched culture of violence and impunity.

The recent case of Aira Seda Dela Cruz has intensified public outrage. Viral CCTV footage allegedly showed her husband, Police Officer Alimeri Dela Cruz, physically assaulting her inside their home in Malolos, Bulacan. The video, which Aira herself shared publicly, showed the officer repeatedly striking her until she lost consciousness. The incident prompted the Philippine National Police (PNP) to relieve the officer from duty pending investigation.

“For every case that reaches the public, countless others remain hidden behind fear, intimidation, and institutional silence,” said Cham Perez, executive director of CWR. “Cases like Aira’s are not isolated incidents. They expose a systemic problem in institutions that continue to tolerate abuse within their ranks while failing to ensure justice for women survivors.”

CWR stressed that violence perpetrated by state forces extends beyond domestic abuse. State-perpetrated VAW includes custodial rape, sexual violence during military operations, harassment committed by state officials, abuse within police and military institutions, and violence against women and children in militarized communities.

According to CWR’s monitoring of official government data, at least 13,211 total number of VAW cases were recorded in 2025 — equivalent to around 36 women experiencing violence every day. However, these numbers represent only a fraction of actual cases. Estimates from the PNP Women and Children Protection Center suggest that only one in ten incidents of violence against women is reported, indicating that the true number of survivors may exceed 130,000 annually.

CWR also raised alarm over the continuing failure to hold men in uniform accountable in cases of abuse, warning that institutional protectionism and weak accountability mechanisms continue to reinforce a culture of impunity. “The uniform must never become a shield for abuse,” Perez said. “Women and children deserve protection, not violence from those mandated to uphold public safety and human rights.”

CWR called on the administration of Bongbong Marcos, the PNP, and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to take concrete actions to end impunity and hold perpetrators within their ranks accountable. It urged authorities to institute independent oversight and civilian accountability mechanisms, guarantee impartial, and transparent investigation of abuse cases, and provision of survivor-centered protection and support systems. The group also stressed the need for mandatory and sustained gender sensitivity and human rights education within uniformed services and the full implementation of the Anti-Violence Against Women and Their Children Act and the Magna Carta of Women.“

At a time when violence against women remains widespread, the state cannot remain complicit through inaction, let alone allow its own agents to become perpetrators of abuse and violence against women. Those entrusted to protect the public must be held to the highest standard of accountability” Perez emphasized. The women’s movement, she added, will continue to call out these systemic abuses and work toward a future where women and children are free from violence and abuse.