Friesen. The Women's Movement in The Philippines
Friesen. The Women's Movement in The Philippines
Friesen. The Women's Movement in The Philippines
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Report
Dorothy Friesen
Correspondence and requests for reprints should be sent to Dorothy Friesen, Synapses,
Inc., 1821 West Cullerton, Chicago, IL 60609.
NWSA Journal, Vol. 1, No. 4, Summer 1989, pp. 676-688.
676
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Philippines 677
inequality between men and women, intensifying the conflict and thus
the urgency for women to respond in a corporate and organized way.
The contemporary women's movement can look back on Philippine
colonial history and find it dotted with stories of strong women who
led in the resistance against foreign rulers. Gabriela Silang is probably
the best known. In the eighteenth century she formed an army of two
thousand men after her husband Diego was killed. They fought the
Spaniards with homemade muskets, blowguns, and arrows. Gabriela was
finally captured and hanged in full view of her followers. Many stories
emerge of elite women during the colonial periods who dedicated their
lives to alleviate the suffering of the poor, to fight injustice, and promote
the rights of women. In addition to reports of individual heroism and
sacrifice or locally led resistance, there are also examples of cooperative
work and organizing on a national scale; for example, in 1937, during
what is known as the commonwealth period of American colonialism,
women won the fight for suffrage. They mounted a campaign which
prompted almost a million Filipinos to ratify the amendment in favor
of women's suffrage.
The current obstacles in a poor country like the Philippines are
exacerbated for women. Women make up half the landless peasants and
almost half of the factory and agribusiness workers, all of whom suffer
because of inadequate pay, lack of medical benefits, and job safety. Two-
thirds of all children under six suffer from some degree of malnutrition,
according to World Health Organization statistics. International tourism
is often a euphemism for prostitution which targets mainly women and
children, and military rape is a standard interrogation procedure for
women political detainees.
In response to contemporary problems, an energetic nationalist move-
ment, composed of both legal and underground organizations, has grown
up in the Philippines in the last two decades. In the context of the
student radicalism of the 1960s which sought major changes in Phil-
ippines society, the first revolutionary women's organization was born.
The organization, Makibaka (Fight Back) supported the goals of the
underground New People's Army but also recognized that women suffer
from political, clan, religious, and male authorities which are expressions
of a feudal-patriarchal ideology and system. In response, Makibaka's
organizational efforts were aimed at stimulating the formation of wom-
en's associations in both rural and urban areas.
When Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972, Makibaka was
forced to go underground, and they moved to the hinterlands of Quezon
province to continue their struggle. Several of the Makibaka leaders
were killed in a 1976 encounter with government military troops; how-
ever, for the most part, Makibaka apparently quietly flourished as an
underground organization. During the brief democratic space early in
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678 Dorothy Friesen
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Philippines 679
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680 DorothyFriesen
We are the women, who, in addition to all these, have been relegated
to supportive and subordinate roles in society; who are discriminated
against even in our laws; whose contribution to the productive and
reproductive processes are not fully appreciated; who are treated as
objects especially in media; who are caricaturedas weak and dependent
by our male oriented values and institutions.
We are the street demonstrators whose legitimate protests are met
with water cannons and truncheons, tear gas and bullets. . . . We are
the women in the countryside whose peace has been shattered by
intensifying militarization. . . . We are the martyrs who have been
arrested, tortured, raped and murdered.
And we say, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
We who make up the bulk of the silent majority, will no longer be
silent. We who have been called the weaker sex, will no longer be
cowed. We who have been relegated to the home will no longer be
confined.
In unity we will raise our collective voices, we will build our collective
strength.
The particular tone and stance of GABRIELA, as expressed in the
manifesto, is intimately connected with the way in which it began and
the history of its leadership; however, the analysis and issue-focus ob-
viously resonated with Filipinas because women's organizations sprang
up quickly across the country in the 1980s.
I witnessed this resonance between the existing national women's
organization and the local needs of women when I stayed with a farming
community on the island of Mindanao several years ago. While visiting
a community just outside of the city of Butuan in order to better grasp
the rural women's situation, the men of the barrio, eager to entertain,
showed me the ricefields and explained in detail the cost of inputs like
fertilizer and pesticides, the cost of renting a hand tiller and of irrigation
so the "miracle rice" will grow miraculously. "We are not officially
organized, but we men meet regularly to discuss farming and economic
problems," they told me.
In the evening, it was traditional for everyone to gather together for
an informal discussion. During the dialogue, I asked if there was a
women's group in the barrio. The women, seated at the edges of the
room shook their heads. One of the more talkative men offered the
comment that "The women are too jealous; they can't get along with
each other." The women were silent, but as soon as the meeting was
over they quickly surrounded me. "We want you to know why we don't
have a women's group," began Mely, the oldest in the group. Plump,
slightly stooped, work and worry lines in her face, she looked at me
with blazing eyes, "We do the housework, look after our children, do
the marketing and help in the fields. By the end of the day we are
exhausted. We are not jealous; we are tired." A younger woman ex-
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Philippines 681
plained, "Then our husbands want to meet in the evening or they want
to go see a movie in town. I have only young children, so I have to
stay home and look after them." My hostess for the week, a quiet
emaciated-looking woman added, "When we are frustrated we go to
Mely's to talk. She gives us good advice." Mely concluded the discussion
with a statement of hope, "We want to be organized as women. ...
Maybe the next time you come and visit us, we will be."
What are the possibilities for a young woman in the barrio? If her
community is allowed to stay on their land, she could marry a farmer
and do double duty in the home and in the fields like Mely and her
friends. If her family loses the land or finds it impossible to make a
living on its small acreage, she could go to the nearest town or city to
look for work in a factory, department store or restaurant, usually at
less than the minimum wage.
Women participate in large numbers in the Philippine workforce and
are preferred by foreign companies because of their ability to do precise
hand-and-eye work and of course, because employers hope they will
prove to be obedient and uncomplaining. Over 80 percent of the twenty-
six thousand workers at the Bataan Export Processing Zone (BEPZ) on
the island of Luzon are women, almost all under twenty-five years of
age. BEPZ is home for sixty transnational corporations, which import
materials, use Philippine labor, and export all goods produced. Many
women at BEPZ are active unionists, and they form the backbone for
the national women's division within the Philippine's militant labor
movement, the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) or May First Movement.
Young women are also recruited from the poverty-ridden barrios in
the Philippines to work in the bars of Olongapo, the rest-and-recreation
town adjacent to the American Naval Base at Subic Bay on Luzon island.
Buklod, a women's drop-in center run for hostesses in Olongapo estimates
that the majority of the fifteen thousand women are between ages 18
and 30. The women cite poverty as the major reason for coming to
Olongapo, but other reasons given are broken homes, troubled mar-
riages, a sense of adventure, and hope of marriage. Prostitution is
technically illegal in the Philippines. Officially there are no prostitutes-
only hostesses, waitresses, cashiers, entertainers or go-go dancers.
Clearly many of the issues which occupy the attention of the nationalist
movement overlap with the concerns of Filipina women-control over
their own economy which means control over wages and prices. GAB-
RIELA and its member organizations have been active in the nationalist
campaigns which emphasize these concerns and have brought a certain
panache to these efforts.
A good example is the drafting of the new constitution in 1986-87.
President Aquino appointed forty-eight members to a Constitutional
Commission, but GABRIELA maintained that "the task of drafting this
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682 Dorothy Friesen
new constitution is not theirs alone. Each and every Filipino woman,
man and youth should be involved."' To that end GABRIELA organized
nationally for women to produce tapestries from pieces of cloth that
bore the demands, issues, and rights of women. Women from the
coalition and member organizations visited communities, schools, fac-
tories, and other areas where there was a concentration of women in
order to discuss women's needs in relation to the constitution. Each
group discussion concluded with the women interpreting their oppression
and demands on a piece of cloth. These pieces were collected and sewn
together in one big tapestry during a camp-out in front of the building
where the constitutional commissioners were meeting. It was then un-
furled for the commissioners, the public, and the media.
GABRIELA articulated three major concerns: recognition and pro-
motion of the rights and welfare of women; promotion of the welfare
of the family and the rights of children; and the guarantee of the general
economic, political, and social conditions necessary for the meaningful
exercise of women's rights and for the full promotion of the welfare
of women, the family, and children. GABRIELA specifically demanded
that men and women receive the same wages for the same work and
that they be equal before the law; in marriage that property management
and disposal be by the mutual determination of both spouses; and that
women have the right to maternity benefits and the right not to lose
jobs because of pregnancy.
GABRIELA also focused on international economic and foreign policy
questions. In order to promote genuine economic development, the
women requested that the constitution guarantee "limits to the entry
of foreign capital and multinationals, . . . trade relations based on
equality and mutual benefit, control over our natural resources and the
responsible utilization of resources for our needs and benefit." In order
to protect freedom and national sovereignty, the constitution must,
"institute a non-aligned foreign policy, institute a no foreign bases policy
and keep the Philippines nuclear-free."2 GABRIELA's national demands
reflect their understanding that without national political and economic
changes, women's specific situation will not change. The group also
recognizes that its attitudes and participation now give it some credibility
to influence decisions in the future. "The women of the Philippines
have a lot to offer in the development of our country," says Nelia
Sancho, "but we women can only have a voice in influencing the future
of the country if we participate fully in the struggles for democracy and
justice now."
'GABRIELA, "A Call for a Meaningful Constitution" (Quezon City, Philippines: GA-
BRIELA, 1986), 2.
2GABRIELA, "Meaningful Constitution," 8.
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684 Dorothy Friesen
adding Giving Birth to a New Society under the word WOMB. The
women held their public breakfast discussions or Kapihan in expensive
coffeehouses, their presence adding a certain glamour to the street
demonstrations. "Our theme is really, 'Women's Place is in the Strug-
gle,'" says Myrna Arceo, a WOMB member and theology professor at
St. Scholastica, an elite women's college. She brings her students-
daughters of the rich-to urban poor communities and rural barrios to
interact with the people and to reflect on what is happening in the
country and to themselves. After years of experimenting with the teach-
ing method of Paulo Freire, Myrna is experienced enough to confidently
send the young women around the city to set up their own learning
encounters. "There is a real change happening in these young women,"
Myrna said in 1987. "There's an openness among them that I don't
remember in students a few years ago." The patient work of teachers
like Myrna Arceo who have emphasized experienced-based learning is
bearing fruit for the future by creating an aware middle class within
the women's movement.
WOMB joined the many other women's organizations of GABRIELA
despite the warning from organizers against the mixing of people from
different social strata. These warnings were extended to Christian com-
munities, that are part of a church that sees itself as multisectoral and
open to all. The fear is that the peasants will not be comfortable in
the presence of the landlords and the traditional feudal relationship will
continue. Nelia Sancho explained, "The women's movement needs the
skills, experience, contacts, and money of middle and upper middle class
women. This is a struggle for equality for all, but we in the middle
class should understand the realities of our country from the perspective
of our poorer sisters in order to make our contribution."
Middle-class and college-educated women have provided resources
and staffing for health seminars as well as pilot socio-economic programs
for peasant and urban-poor women. They have also helped with putting
together radio programs since radio is the primary source of information
and entertainment in both rural and urban areas. The programs include
mini-dramas, songs, interviews with women, and news. Middle-class women
have also helped in conducting seminars on low-cost visual media which
can contribute to making women's education more effective and livelier.
Women participants are encouraged to visualize their own ideas and
then produce them in cartoons, caricatures, silkscreen, posters, charcoal
drawings, and lettering. The women's movement also emphasizes de-
veloping writing skills. Most people in the Philippines can read and write
at some level; but too frequently at school, writing skills are learned in
English, which is ineffective for the vast majority of Filipinos who still
express themselves in Tagalog or Cebuano or one of the many dialects
in the Philippines. A spokeswoman for the Women's Studies and Re-
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Philippines 685
source Center (WSRC) in Davao explained the need for women writers'
workshops, "Now women will write about themselves and use this means
to advance their emancipation process." The WSRC also published
participants' evaluations after one writing seminar. A forty-seven-year-
old farmer wrote, "It was gay in the seminar as we worked together
with enthusiastic and alert lecturers. At the start I felt insecure seeing
that I was the least educated in the group. I soon found out this was
not true because I could write after all."5
Middle- and upper-class members of the women's movement ran for
Congress in 1987 and served on the Constitutional Commission, but
much of their agenda came from the needs and analysis of the urban
poor, women workers' and women peasants' organizations. The Phil-
ippine women's movement has demonstrated a remarkable ability to
absorb and use the strengths of cross-class plurality by mounting cam-
paigns around issues which affect everyone's life. A glimpse of this
plurality was evident in 1984 during a three-day women's walk to the
Bataan Nuclear Plant, over one hundred kilometers from Manila. The
plant has since been mothballed by the Aquino administration, but in
1984 residents in the area were terrified that it would go on line. The
reactor itself had safety problems, and the site was situated on an
earthquake fault on the slope of a volcano in an area subject to tidal
waves. Even the Marcos-appointed mayors of the neighboring towns
were opposed to the plant. The concern about the nuclear plant reached
women from all strata of society. The march began at Ayala Avenue,
center of the international business district of Makati in Manila, with a
rally attended by many well-dressed professional women. In addition to
the jeepneys (jeep engines with elongated bodies which seat twelve, used
as public transportation in most towns and cities of the Philippines)
rented for the occasion, several sleek-looking private cars joined the
slow motorcade procession out of Manila.
I was assigned to an air-conditioned car with an obviously wealthy
Chinese-Filipino family. The women were well-dressed and laden with
jewelry. The only person who looked out of place in the car was a
young woman in a simple t-shirt, jeans, and thongs. It soon became
clear that she was a coordinator of the march. Inbetween giving directives
to runners who occasionally walked by the car, she explained, "The
police might target the organizers at the beginning of the march, so
extra precautions had to be taken." The plump Chinese women turned
around from the front seat and smiled at me. They (upper class Filipinas)
and I (a foreigner) were the extra precaution. When the motorcade
reached the outskirts of the city, the organizer hopped out, pulled me
5Womenews 14 (April-June 1987) (Women's Studies and Resource Center, Rm. 207,
Santos Building, Malvar Extension, Davao City, Philippines), 9. (Translated from Cebuano.)
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686 Dorothy Friesen
with her, and the air-conditioned car sped away in the direction of
Manila. The remainder of the protest march was on foot, predominantly
by urban poor, farmers, and workers.
During the antinuclear march, I glimpsed yet another aspect of the
commitment to work within the nationalist movement-the importance
of the changes which men must make in order to build a society of
equality and mutual respect. I realized, for example, during the three-
day march that the men and women of the Manila press on this trip
were no ordinary writers and photographers. They worked cooperatively,
with virtually no competition between them. Though they rode in the
media jeepney while most of the participants walked, they shared in the
meager food and lodging of the rallyists (the floor of a school gymnasium
one night and benches of a church the next night). A few of them had
themselves been political detainees at one time.
The women led the march through central Luzon and at each town
local demonstrators greeted the marchers and escorted them to the
town plaza. After two days of walking under the hot sun and attending
late evening meetings, the exhausted women orchestrated their grand
finale. Homemade torches flaming, they began to march into the night,
led by the two former beauty queens, Maita Gomez and Nelia Sancho.
Ominous storm clouds in the afternoon developed into an evening
thunderstorm which quickly extinguished the torches. The rain lashed
against the resolute faces of Maita and the other women walking behind
the jeepney. They were gasping for breath against the downpour, as
water literally streamed down their faces. Then suddenly someone yelled
and the procession stopped. A young man shaking with the cold was
stuffed into our already overcrowded media vehicle. One of the Filipino
photographers quickly put away his camera equipment and grabbed a
towel and t-shirt from his bag. He removed the wet shirt from the
shaking figure, tenderly swabbed him with his towel and offered him a
dry t-shirt. His instinctive act of human kindness shamed me, because
all I could think about at the time was my own discomfort-no space
for my legs in the cramped vehicle, clothing damp and cold, rain spilling
through the pathetic plastic covers hung over the open windows.
I watched this display of compassion from a member of the working
press and remembered the words of Carolina Malay, National Democratic
Front spokesperson, as she described what happened to men and women
in the nationalist movement. "One difference is that the men cry more
easily and the women cry less than their counterparts in the broader
Philippine society." The development of courageous women and com-
passionate men is an historic process, even more impressive when it
arises in the context of poverty and militarization, where the necessary
leisure to mentally process internal change is not available. This change
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Philippines 687
6Jurgette Honculada, "Women's Double Burden: The Question Which Will Not Wait,"
in Kamalayan: Feminist Writings in the Philippines, ed. Pennie S. Azarcon (Quezon City:
Pilipina Press, 1987), 27.
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688 Dorothy Friesen
I have a helper who does all the cleaning and cooking. My husband is
a lawyer and he is too busy for that sort of thing." I looked at Elly
and Lita. They were sitting expressionless, their heads down. "Will your
helper be at the demonstration this afternoon?" we asked Regina, "Oh,
no, she has extra work in the house because I had so much running
around to do in preparation for this action." Elly and Lita glared. The
moment passed quickly and the discussion moved on perhaps in deference
to the "foreign friends." Later the same afternoon, we saw Lita, Elly,
and Regina arm-in-arm at the rally in support of the farmers.
Honculada writes, "Where no real child care support exists, state
sponsored or otherwise, the emancipation of middle-class women hinges
on the subjugation of a sub-class of women-household help-however
benevolent the terms of the subjugation might be. . . . Until feminism
and socialism can adequately address this core of female oppression
through such short term measures as socialized child care and equal
pay for work of equal value and through a long term vision that posits
freer and more creative structures, roles and relationships, . . . the
liberation of one half of humanity shall remain an unredeemed promise
of the socialist vision, and feminism will never mobilize the revolutionary
potential of women as women and as classes in transforming the old
society into the new."7
The summary of the women's movement in the Philippines properly
belongs to the women there. What follows is an excerpt from a poem
written by Filipina researchers in 1983 after working on a social research
project on the situation of women. They reflect on the process the
women's movement in the Philippines has chosen to resolve the con-
tradictions of class and gender oppression: "But we have found a way
to survive using our pain and keeping us whole./Our past is one long
thread-sewing our present weaving our future./Let us press forward
and break the silence./Sew our problems into demands./Let us find
ourselves in the drama of history-making."
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