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October 28: National Women’s Day of protest

Gabriela, the militant alliance of women’s organizations in the Philippines, declares October 28 as national women’s day of protest. On this day in 1983, around ten thousand women from all walks of life poured into the streets of Makati to protest the Marcos dictatorship. That huge mass action of women broke the silence of women who for more than a decade lived a life of fear because of Martial Rule. The ten thousand women condemned the human rights violations that ranged from killing, arbitrary arrests and detentions, harassments and torture of women activists and other activists who dared to speak about the Marcos dictatorship.

We are facing these same conditions now under the regime of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The economic and political conditions have in fact aggravated. Under the GMA administration, millions of Filipino women and children suffer the violence of hunger and state terrorism.

Indigenous and peasant women in the Cordillera are facing the threat of economic and social displacement from their ancestral homelands and livelihood because of the anticipated entry of large mines, and the continued dumping of cheap imported agricultural products as a result of the Philippine government’s entry to the World Trade Organization.

Instead of ensuring food security and livelihood for women and their families, GMA continues to demolish our sources of livelihood and our jobs. Instead of providing secured jobs, GMA’s administration is killing our economic rights by imposing on us additional taxes such as the expanded value added tax and other forms of state exactions. Women consumers are suffering much from the non-stop increases on the price of oil products, on basic consumer goods and services. The inflation rate of more than 8% is already unbearable for us who have no more pesos to stretch.

We are hungry and we are angry. The room for us to exercise our democratic rights has been further curtailed by repressive policies such as the calibrated pre-emptive response (CPR), by harassment when we bring to public attention our hunger and when we assert our basic human rights. Militarization as a state policy has made the lives of women in the countryside even more miserable, their security is always threatened.

These are reasons for protest. These conditions strengthen our resolve to pressure GMA to step down, now.

On this national women’s day of protest, we add up our voices and actions to the voices and actions of women from different regions of the country to demand our right to decent and secured living. We demand our right to land, food and jobs.

Stop the implementation of the expanded value-added tax!

Scrap the Oil Deregulation Law! Rollback the price of oil products!

Justice for the victims of state terrorism! Punish the perpetrators of human rights violations! Stop militarization and political repression!

OUST GMA, now! #

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