In the News

Digital platforms have become important spaces for organizing, advocacy, and civic participation. For young people, women, and marginalized communities, they provide opportunities to raise concerns, connect with others, and participate in public discussions and collective action. But digital spaces are also increasingly being used to silence dissent.

In the Philippines, community organizers, young women leaders, and advocates from workers’, farmers’, urban poor, and other marginalized sectors face tech-facilitated violence and repression —including online harassment, surveillance, misinformation and disinformation, coordinated trolling, and red-tagging. These attacks do not only happen online; they create fear, encourage self-censorship, disrupt organizing, and limit people’s ability to safely participate in civic and democratic processes. Women, youth, and marginalized sectors already face structural barriers to participation. When their voices are attacked, discredited, or silenced online, these barriers become even greater.

In October 2026, through the “Connected for Change: Youth Leadership and Intergenerational Solidarity Against Tech-Facilitated Violence and Repression”, the Center for Women’s Resources (CWR), Girls for Peace, and Salinlahi Youth seek to strengthen young women leaders’ capacity to understand, analyze, and respond to these challenges through safer and more strategic digital civic engagement. It will also create a space for intergenerational dialogue and collaboration with experienced organizers from workers’, farmers’, and urban poor communities. Together, we aim to strengthen solidarity, develop collective advocacy initiatives, and build sustained action against digital repression and shrinking civic space. This project is supported by the Tifa Foundation and Civicus Alliance thru the Digital Democracy Initiative.

Digital spaces should be spaces for participation, organizing, and collective action, not fear and intimidation. Together, we can reclaim our digital civic space and use it to create change.

The Center for Women’s Resources was selected as a grantee by Tifa Foundation and CIVICUS’ Digital Democracy Initiative under the Re-D Fund Cohort 2.

Under the project “Connected for Change: Youth Leadership and Intergenerational Solidarity Against Digital Repression” CWR with Girls for Peace and Salinlahi Youth will conduct a training on digital civic engagement and mass campaigning which aims to strengthen young women leaders’ capacity to effectively and strategically use digital civic spaces for information dissemination, public education, organizing, mass campaigning, and advocacy.

#DDI_EastSEA #ReclaimCivicSpace #DefendFilipinoWomen

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.

The Center for Women’s Resources (CWR), in partnership with the UP Diliman Gender Office, convened its annual Ulat Lila forum on March 3, 2026, at the Conference Hall of Balay Kalinaw, University of the Philippines-Diliman, Quezon City. Serving as the culmination of the Center’s research and grassroots engagement, Ulat Lila 2026 presented a comprehensive assessment of the current socioeconomic and political conditions confronting Filipino women.

This year’s forum situated the worsening state of Filipino women within the context of prevailing neoliberal policies, which CWR said have deepened structural inequalities and restricted access to economic opportunities. The report highlighted how rising prices, low wages, precarious work, and shrinking social protection continue to disproportionately burden women, particularly those from marginalized sectors.

CWR also underscored what it described as intensifying public concern and the growing resistance against government corruption and the mismanagement of public funds. At the forefront of these calls for accountability are President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte. According to the group, recent controversies—including issues surrounding large-scale flood control projects—reflect deeper systemic problems rooted in bureaucrat capitalism, where state mechanisms are allegedly used to benefit political and economic elites at the expense of ordinary Filipinos.

CWR noted, “even the poorest among us pay taxes through VAT on every purchase made, yet they struggle to access the most basic social services. Worse, the very funds they contribute are pocketed by those in power.”

It also cited worsening debt among women farmers amid declining grain prices, as well as intensified development aggression affecting women in fisherfolk and indigenous communities – often resulting in displacement, harassment, and heightened risks for women and children. The report documented increasing cases of human trafficking, illegal recruitment, and online recruitment scams targeting women seeking employment abroad.“

As crises worsen, women bear the heaviest burden,” CWR emphasized during the forum presentation.

In addition, the forum raised alarm over persistent human rights violations in the Philippines, noting documented cases of threat, harassment, and intimidation between July 2022 and November 2025.

Despite these challenges, CWR highlighted the growing strength of women’s collective action across sectors. The forum emphasized movement-building, community organizing, and rights advocacy as critical responses to deepening social and economic crises.

For more information, inquiries, or access to the executive summary of the Ulat Lila 2026 report, please contact the Center for Women’s Resources at (63-2) 7758-5784 / 09534780468 ##ulatlila2026#IWWD#defendfilipino