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Ilocos women declare state of urgency

VIGAN CITY (Mar. 15) — After Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo lifted the state of national emergency, women groups here declared a state of urgency in a forum.

According to Cindy Relucio, spokesperson of Gabriela-Ilocos, this state of urgency is the counterpart of Presidential Proclamation 1017 or the state of national emergency. She added that this state of urgency is the response of Ilocos women to the intensifying state of repression and worsening economic and political conditions.

Relucio reiterated that the state of urgency is an urgent call to all women of Ilocos to unite and impede the desperate attempts of the Arroyo regime to quell the people’s movement.

“It is not true that her presidency is the will of God because he never wanted the people to suffer from low wages, high taxes, and increasing prices of basic commodities and poverty,” she said.

Beth Alfiler, chairperson of Solidarity of Ilocos Associations of Women (SILAW) also shared the same sentiment. She said that women in the countryside are often victims of human rights violations perpetrated by the military, police and vigilante groups.

“She is the one destabilizing our country with her attacks to the people struggling for better lives, just wages, lower electric and water rates and lower prices of commodities,” Relucio noted.

The two women leaders also said that unless GMA resigns from her post, the people would continue to suffer.

Relucio and Alfiler concluded that the state of urgency would not be lifted until the root causes of economic and political problems are resolved. # Rod Tajon for NORDIS

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