The Center for Women’s Resources enjoins everyone to stand for women, and with women for the 2022 National Elections.
As the official campaign period for national positions begins today, February 8, we call on all women to amplify their voices and ensure that candidates for electoral positions prioritize the welfare of women and heed their calls for genuine change.
In the last six years, we have witnessed the decades-long exploitation and oppression of Filipino women worsen, especially those belonging to the basic sectors. Under the Duterte administration,they have experienced further economic and socio-political crises. Duterte’s adherence to the neoliberal agenda continued to prioritize profit of corporations, landlords, and the ruling elite instead of the welfare of ordinary people, aggravating inequality and maldevelopment in the country.
Deregulation of prices of food and other basic commodities have severely impacted the lives and livelihood of women who carry multiple burdens at work and in their homes. In 2018, the implementation of TRAIN Law caused the inflation rate to surge from 3.45% in January to 6.7% in September of the same year. Furthermore, workers in the National Capital Region experienced the least and lowest wage increase compared to past administrations, with only two wage hikes in the last six years, with a cumulative percentage increase of 9.4%.
Agricultural liberalization through ease of restrictions on imported products and lack of support for local food production leave farmers to suffer in landlessness and debt. One year after the implementation of the Rice Tariffication Law, local rice farmers lost an estimate of Php 68.18 billion as palay farmgate prices fell by Php 3.62 per kilo. The price of palay also dropped to as low as Php10 per kilo in 2020.
Women who belong to the informal economy continue to experience lack of social protection measures and are most vulnerable to abuses. In total, 1 out of 2 employed women belong to the informal sector. In 2020, CWR estimates that 19.54 million Filipino women are economically insecure.
When the COVID- 19 pandemic hit, the already detrimental conditions of women and their communities were aggravated even more. Lockdown restrictions close down factories and offices leaving thousands of women unemployed. Peasant and indigenous women were prevented from going to their farms and tending to their livelihood, while millions lost their livelihood in the informal sector. Women continue to suffer hunger, poverty, landlessness, and joblessness in the middle of the deadly virus spread. These conditions further put women vulnerable to gender-related abuses.
The failed government response of militaristic lockdowns, arbitrary detentions, and lack of enough social amelioration has further pushed women to find means to survive every day. Repressive policies such as restrictions of mobility and transport for unvaccinated individuals also exist today. Amid all these, shrinking of civic space and direct attacks against rights defenders continue.
This election season, we challenge political aspirants to veer away from failed neoliberal, repressive and corrupt policies and instead, support the women’s agenda. We challenge them to make a commitment to prioritize the rights and welfare of women and children when elected in public office, to uphold transparency and accountability. We call on everyone to reject candidates with records of misogyny, plunder, and human right abuses. It is our duty to ensure that those who perpetuate abuse and continue to misrepresent, belittle, and disrespect women, be removed and prevented from staying in power.
Furthermore, we call on our sisters in the struggle to make our votes matter and be vigilant against any form of electoral fraud and violence. Importantly, we call on all women to continue to stand in the frontlines in our fight for genuine change for ourselves, our families, and our communities. #
Statements and Media Releases
Statements and media releases and statements from the Center for Women’s Resources
On the ratification of the amendments of the Public Services Act
The Center for Women’s Resources raises alarm over the ratification of the amendments to the Public Services Act, which entails 100% foreign ownership to public services such as telecommunication and mass media, power generation, and the transportation sector such as railways, airlines, and logistical facilities.
Ease in restrictions on foreign ownership of public services will mean further control of private corporations and deregulation over prices of public services, burdening Filipino women consumers of higher costs of expenses on goods and services such as electricity, internet, and public transportation. Such services will be more inaccessible to the public, who have suffered the most from the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In his last SONA, President Duterte certified this bill as urgent, along with other bills that will further liberalize the economy as the road to recovery from the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Up to the last months of his term, the Duterte Administration pushes neoliberal measures to ensure profit for foreign investors and multinational corporations while Filipinos continue to suffer rising prices of commodities, job losses, and lack of opportunities.
Further liberalization of public goods and services is not the solution. On the contrary it creates deeper economic problems for future generations. Genuine pandemic recovery should be focused on building back differently, veering away from the same failed economic policies that essentially violate women and people’s right to development. Instead, more sustainable measures should be prioritized – ensuring public healthcare and social protection, increasing wages, providing higher subsidies in domestic agriculture and rural development, and building a national industry. #
JUSTICE FOR BELLE*! JUSTICE FOR VICTIMS OF STATE-PERPETRATED VIOLENCE!
The Center for Women’s Resources joins the call for justice for Belle*, a 15-year old victim of kidnapping, torture, and rape by elements of the 59th IBPA between July to August 2020.
Last January 21, Belle, together with her mother, has come forward and sought help from women’s organizations and human rights institutions to speak against the abuses she and her family has experienced in the hands of military and paramilitary forces in the past years. They also filed cases against civilians, including a DSWD officer from Lopez, Quezon, for serious illegal detention.
Belle’s mother, Ofel, is a member of Coco Levy Fund Ibalik Sa Amin (CLAIM – QUEZON), an organization of coconut farmers who have long been subjected to red tagging and forced surrender under the e-CLIP Amnesty Program of the NFT-ELCAC. After her ordeal in the hands of her perpetrators, Belle and her family continued to receive threats from state forces.
Rape, and other forms of violence, are used as tools for repression by the state to instill fear against the people, especially women and children, to suppress clamor for their basic rights. It has been used as a form of intimidation against community leaders and their families. In the last six years, state-perpetrated abuse against women and children have become more prevalent, with no one less than President Duterte blatantly enabling such violence, through his repulsive and misogynist remarks on rape and violence.
CWR has monitored not less than 81 police and military officers who have been involved in at least 55 cases of abuse against women and children, including at least 33 cases of rape, perpetrated by police and the military since President Duterte was sworn into office in July 2016 to the present.
Just last January 15, another state perpetrator from the QCPD Crime Laboratory Office was arrested for rape and child abuse against a 17-year old girl form Quezon City. There were also at least seven other state-perpetrated VAWC cases reported since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Center for Women’s Resources continues to stand with Belle, her family, and all victims of state-perpetrated abuses. We remain steadfast is our commitment to forward the call to end violence against women and to hold perpetrators accountable for their crimes.
*Name withheld for security purposes
Stand united against development aggression and state-sponsored attacks! Fight for land, food, and justice on International Rural Women’s Day!
The Center for Women’s Resources joins rural women, peasant leaders and advocates in the call to defend peasant women and resist rural development aggression on the commemoration of the International Day of Rural Women today.
Majority of people in the rural areas in the Philippines are peasants and indigenous peoples who have long been suffering from landlessness and land-grabbing, inequality, and displacement from their homes and livelihood. Aside from these, rural women and girls suffer multiple burdens of domestic work, violence and lack of social services such as health and education.
It is ironic that while the UN’s theme “Rural women cultivating good food for all” signifies the crucial, yet often undermined role of rural women in ensuring food security, the global food systems is persistently dominated by a corporate-driven agricultural agenda. This resulted in even more hunger, poverty, and health crises, amid the pandemic.
Since the Philippines’ accession to the GATT-WTO Agreement on Agriculture three decades, ago as well as the country’s commitments to the International Monetary Fund-World Bank (IMF-WB) group, past and present government’s laws and policies forward liberalization in the agriculture sector in the name of “global competitiveness” and “free trade.”
The Philippine government’s subservience to the neoliberal agenda has done nothing but to secure superprofit for multinational agricultural corporations from the blood and sweat of farm laborers, small farmers and fisherfolk. Multinational agriculture giants such as SUMIFRU in Mindanao rake in profits as agricultural workers suffer poor working conditions and depressingly low wages.
A women farm worker from Nagkakaisang Manggagawang Kababaihan ng Sumifru shares, “Ang working conditions sa SUMIFRU… walang kasiguraduhan sa benepisyo. Kontraktwal ang trabaho, at mahaba ang oras ng paggawa. “Dahil sa mahaba ang oras ng trabaho, kulang na kulang ang oras sa mga anak at sa bahay…Hinggil naman sa safety sa lugar ng pinagtatrabahuhan, nakakalanghap po kami ng hazardous chemicals at walang sapat na proteksyon.”
In addition, foreign loan-driven large-scale infrastructure projects in the countryside plunder the country’s natural resources while destroying the ancestral lands and cultural heritage of indigenous people. It poses risks and irreversible damage to their communities and sources of livelihood.
The construction of Jalaur River Dam in Calinog, Iloilo, a Php 11.2-billion mega dam construction project under the Duterte administration’s flagship infrastructure program, Build, Build, Build, will result in massive dislocation and flooding in the surrounding communities. Around 17,000 Tumanduks will lose homes, lives, and livelihood, and at least nine communities will be submerged. Surrounding areas will also be more prone to landslides and flooding. Moreover, heightened military presence in the area has sowed fear and unrest among indigenous communities. In addition, on December 30, 2020, nine IP leaders who strongly campaigned against the dam in Calinog and Tapaz were killed and 16 others, including six women, were arrested by the PNP and military who reportedly served dubious search warrants and planted firearms and explosives as pieces of evidence.
As the economic and political crisis worsens, state forces point their guns towards rural people’s resistance. According to AMIHAN, of the 340 farmers killed during the Duterte administration, 44 were peasant women. Sixty-five (65) of the 81 peasant women political prisoners were imprisoned under Duterte.
Relentless state-sponsored attacks, red-tagging, arrests and killings did not stop rural women from leading their communities in activities and campaigns to respond to their needs. In General Nakar, Quezon, women farmers of Kiday Community Farmers Association are leading organic farming and training for food processing initiatives to ensure their food and incomes.
These practices of organic farming, communal gardens, community-based healthcare, as well as bungkalan allowed them to provide sustenance for their communities. They have employed sustainable alternatives to collectively combat hunger and lack of support. They have also launched campaigns for the Php 15,000 agricultural subsidy and aid for those affected by the pandemic. Together with other sectors of society, they have marched hand-in-hand against state terror.
On the International Day of Rural Women, we reiterate our demand to the government to respond to the urgent demands of rural people. We enjoin all advocates, rights defenders, and supporters to stand in solidarity with rural women in the fight for land, food, and justice for all. #
𝗪𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻’𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗡𝗚𝗢 𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗺 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗲-𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗲, 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗮𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗻𝘁𝗶-𝗥𝗮𝗽𝗲 𝗟𝗮𝘄
The Center for Women’s Resources raises concern against another police-perpetrated rape of a female rider in a checkpoint in Mabalacat, Pampanga on October 8.
Police-perpetrated violence against women has been a systemic issue, despite promises of reforms in the PNP. CWR records at least seven reported cases of state-perpetrated violence against women since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020 to the present, including the rape-slay of a minor by two policemen in Ilocos Sur last year, and at least two cases of police-perpetrated rape against women who have been apprehended for violating quarantine measures. There have also been reports of “sex-for-pass” especially during the enhanced community quarantine. Men in uniform have abused the strict implementation of lockdowns to further violate women’s rights.
CWR also notes that there have been 56 police officers who have been involved in 33 cases of abuse against women, including 16 cases of rape during the first two years of Pres. Duterte in office, from July 2016 to March 2018.
Pres. Duterte with his long list of disparaging remarks against women, blatantly enables perpetrators to commit violence against women. He himself has repeatedly and proudly violated women, and has never shown remorse in doing so.
CWR expresses utmost support in the passage of the amendments of the Anti-Rape Law. Higher penalties need to be imposed on perpetrators who gravely abuse their power and commit such heinous crimes.
Women and children who are victims of violence have suffered too much, with the delays in the pursuit of justice, much more when perpetrators are in uniform. We must remain vigilant in holding perpetrators accountable and ensuring that those who continue to support such acts be removed from power. #