In the News

The Center for Women’s Resources (CWR) welcomes Mary Jane Veloso’s release after the grant of an absolute pardon. Her freedom is long-overdue and is a victory for Mary Jane, her family, and the movements in the Philippines, Indonesia, and across the world that fought for her freedom for more than a decade.

However, CWR emphasizes that the pardon must never be construed as an admission of guilt, nor her  freedom must not be presented as an act of presidential sympathy or personal benevolence. 

“Mary Jane Veloso is free today not because the powerful suddenly became compassionate. She is free because people organized, persisted, and refused to let her case be buried,” CWR Executive Director Cham Perez said. “Her freedom is a victory of the movements in the Philippines and Indonesia that fought for her life and dignity.”

CWR added that their sustained campaigns helped shed light on the realities of human trafficking, illegal recruitment, and the vulnerability of Filipino migrant workers. 

The governments of the Philippines and Indonesia eventually took action amid sustained public pressure and continuing negotiations. Mary Jane’s transfer to the Philippines in December 2024 and the subsequent grant of absolute pardon show that state action is possible when movements compel governments to respond.

Women pushed into migration

Mary Jane’s case cannot be separated from the conditions that force millions of Filipinos to seek work abroad. The lack of decent jobs and sustainable livelihoods in the absence of national industrialization and rural development has forced them to leave their families and communities to work overseas.

This migration is reinforced by the government’s labor-export policy and by an economy that continues to depend heavily on remittances instead of building domestic industries, strengthening agriculture, and creating secure employment.

In 2024, approximately 2.19 million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) were deployed with their remittances reaching a record-breaking ₱262.20 billion.

Women constituted the majority of OFWs in 2024: 1.25 million, or 57.2 percent of the total. In other words, nearly six out of every ten Filipino migrant workers were women. The majority (68.4 percent) of whom were employed in elementary occupations – routine and low-paid jobs such as cleaning, restocking supplies, and performing basic maintenance in apartments, hotels, offices, and other facilities. 

Increasing cases of trafficking and criminalization of migrant women

Government data reveal the continued vulnerability of OFWs. The Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) said in 2025 that there were some 3,000 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) with cases abroad, most of which were labor or work-related. The figure included 24 Filipinos on death row.

The same year, the DMW reported processing 479 illegal-recruitment cases. Authorities also took down 85,538 social media pages targeting current and aspiring OFWs, including 79,445 illegal recruitment posts on Facebook and TikTok. Thirty-two illegal recruitment companies were shut down.

The struggle continues

As we celebrate Mary Jane’s freedom, we reiterate that struggle does not end with her release. We call on Filipinos to continue fighting for a country where women and their families do not have to leave home simply to find work to earn a living and to change the system that depends on the export of Filipino labor instead of creating decent jobs and livelihood through building national industries and rural development.

###

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.