GABRIELA and the Filipino women's movement
PHILIPPINES
Interview with Sister
Mary John Mananzan (Free Movement of New Women). It already had a feminist tendency then, but I would say that it was oriented more politically than around feminism. Its main objective was how to get women interested and involved in national liberation. Unfortunately in 1972, it had to go underground. During the martial law period from 1972 to about 1978-79, there was really no movement, until 1978 when women's associations began to emerge. One of the very first was Pilipina, then came the Center for Women's Resources (CWR) and others like the Movement of Women Workers (KMK).
In 1984, the CWR had the idea of inviting all women's associations and the women's departments of other organizations to come to a conference. It was in this conference that the participants opted to set up a federation, which was given the name GABRIELA. It has to be said that in the very beginning the members of GABRIELA were more political militants than feminists, which is understandable. There were at the same time personalities involved in GABRIELA at the level of the national council, prominent women in the Philippines who did not even have any feminist perspective.
THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT in the Philippines is young. But during these past five years it has evolved quite fast and actively. While many women's groups have emerged, the principal federation is GABRIELA', which has gathered under its umbrella about 100 organizations comprising about 40,000 women.
Sister Mary John Mananzan, GABRIELA's re-elected national chairperson, gave the following interview to / in early June.
She has been involved in a broad range of activities, from the defence of consumer rights to international gatherings of women theologians. She is presently Dean of St Scholastica's
College in Manila. Sr Mary John talked to Sonia Rupon about
GABRIELA's organization, activities, problems and perspectives.
AN YOU tell us about the na-
C ture of GABRIELA, and unde what circumstances it wa:
formed?
GABRIELA was born in 1984. Actually it was established at a conference called by the Center for Women's Resources. Let us go back a little bit. Before the 1970s, there was no such thing as a feminist movement in the Philippines. If we go into the reasons for that, first of all middle class women thought they were liberated, and so questioned the need to build a feminist movement. The second reason is that the feminist movement projected through the media was a kind of hysterical feminism that turned off the Filipino women. It took the experiences of Filipinas invited to women's conferences abroad to see that it was a legitimate question. There they saw raised exactly the same issues that were being discussed in the meetings in the Philippines. The necessity to build a feminist movement then came to the fore.
And so in the 1970s, groups started to be formed. The very first was MAKIBAKA
What I'm trying to say is that there has been an evolution in the orientation of GABRIELA. • Can you talk a bit more about this evolution?
In 1985, I remember that the executive council of GABRIELA asked for a workshop which would tackle precisely the feminist perspective. And so we had a nationwide workshop where we invited all the various leaders of all the different organizations. We really hammered out the meaning of a feminist orientation, and we came out with the following principles.
A feminist association is different from an association of women. Women's associations could have objectives that benefit women, but these are usually on an issue to issue basis. Whereas a feminist organization must concern itself basically with the woman question. There must be an insight that there is discrimination, subordination and oppression of women that transcends class, race, creed, nationality and culture, and that the feminist is committing herself to the eradication of these kinds of discrimination, of oppression. So that is the bottom line.
As a third world women's association, 1. GABRIELA is the acronym for this broad federation, taken after the name of Gabriela Silang, a Filipina Lion, et due end he the mincient cent Spanish domine. 13 tion, at the end of the nineteenth century. July 11, 1988 • #145 International Viewpoint
PHILIPPINES we also emphasize the importance of the contextualization of the women's movement - that is to say, the women's movement in the Philippines must be in the context of the economic, political and socio-cultural transformation of society. It is not a movement apart from, isolated from, or secondary to — it is an essential part of the process. So we are saying that the economic, social and political transformation is the necessary, although not the sufficient, condition for women's liberation.
We realize that women cannot be fully liberated unless there is this transformation, but neither do we see the possibility of total human liberation without the liberation of women. Therefore we insist that we are not going to wait until society is liberated before we present the question but that it must be a totally integrated and a total part of the process of liberation. • What is GABRIELA's membership? Is it represented sectorally?
From 47 member organizations, GABRIELA has grown to around 100 affiliates... about 40,000 individual members. Ninety per cent are grassroots women. The peasant women who belong to AMIHAN would be around 18,000. Women workers in the KMK would be about 15,000. Urban poor women would number 3,000, and the rest would be all individuals. • What areas of work is GABRIELA engaged in?
Each one of the member organizations will have their own focus and their own activities, but we have summarized the strategies of GABRIELA into seven, for the sake of systematization. All these are not done by everyone, but one aspect or another is carried out by one of the associations.
These seven strategies include first of all organization, because we realize that an oppressed group cannot be empowered without organization. We organize according to sector, according to interest. And, presently, we try to organize according to regions and territorial areas. Right now we have four regions: Manila, Davao, Panay and Bacolod. We have also developed national commissions. The commission on violence against women opened two centers in the prostitution areas, BAGWIS in Ermita and BUKLOD in Olongapo. They try to organize prostitutes for their own welfare and educate them on health. The commission also heads the campaign on AIDS.
There is another commission on women and health that is monitoring primary health care clinics in different urban areas. There is also the commission on children, as there is absolutely no association protecting children. Here we tackle issues like child prostitution and train those who will be teaching in the day-care centers. We also have the commission on human rights and an international desk.
Our second strategy is around mobili14 zation. Following from the principle that • we have a context, we organize women not International Viewpoint #145 • July 11, 1988 only around purely feminist issues - for example, mail-order brides, prostitution, rape, AIDS. We also mobilize women on national issues like foreign bases, the foreign debt and consumer issues. the most important strategies because women in the Philippines have internalized their oppression. Middle-class women are comfortable in their role in the house because they have maids. So they can actually be fulfilled even in their jobs precisely because there is some kind of a safetyvalve to which their tensions can be channeled. They do not really suffer very much the impact of a double burden, for example. But it is there. Non-middle class women who would render such domestic services would not question that. For them this is the natural state of affairs. That is what their lot is all about. They even see wifebeating as their lot. So there must be
Education is done formally and informally, institutionally and non-institutionally. The informal and non-institutional way of education is what is being done in the different organizations. They each have an education desk, but the national office of GABRIELA provides the modules. Training for teachers is also provided by the national office. In the formal, institutional way, it is not really GABRIELA which does it. Like me, for instance. Since I am a member of GABRIELA and I am also head of a schoolI have seen to it that a women's course should be incorporated into the institution. There is now a consortium of schools that has agreed to the introduction of women's
Right now in the school we have the introductory courses, which everybody must take, and the cognate course on women. There is also an ongoing project — the Institute of Women's Studies. This will deal with curricula and resource development, trying to get as much printed and nonprinted material of all kinds to be open to women who come to the center; research and publication, as there is real need for writings from a Filipino point of view about the problematic of women; and an outreach program — a participative, intercultural course on women which we will
The fourth strategy is feminist scholarship. There is a difference between feminist scholarship and education. Feminist education is consciousness-raising, the opening of the minds, whereas in feminist scholarship we try to put the women's perspective into the different disciplines, like theology, psychology, history and so forth. The associations that do this in GABRIELA are the Association of Women in Theology and the National Organization of Women Religious in the Philippines. This is a very important aspect because the Philippines is 85 per cent Catholic and there really is a religious root to women's oppression. That is why it is vital that religion should be rethought in a very determined way from the women's perspective.
The fifth strategy is legislative action. We used this strategy in the tapestry campaign which pushed for the rights of women to be included in the drafting of the new Constitution in late 1986 and early 1987. Women artistically presented their rights on tapestry, and it's success was not only in terms of mobilization but also in the fact that the constitutional commissioners did put an equal rights statement in the Constitution.
We realize today, however, that there is no use having it in the Constitution if there is no legislation about it, and so we are now busy preparing our legislative agenda — for example, on support mechanisms. We are formulating a bill to have the government set aside an economic development fund for women. Other bills that have been
submitted are bills against pornography, child prostitution and wife-beating. Something is happening on the legal side, and we also aim to organize women's lawyers for free legal aid for women whatever their problems, but especially for cases of rape.
The sixth would be welfare. We still lack welfare facilities, like a rape center, a center for battered women and so on. Initial moves were taken by Hilda Narciso, who was gang-raped by the military and who had to undergo three years of therapy. She publicly denounced them on TV, and as a result, other victims have gone to her. There are now about seven women with whom she is having group therapy. Their main objective now is to set up a rape crisis center.
On the other welfare activities that GABRIELA is doing, we have started integrated community projects in the urban poor community. This consists in providing the women in these areas with a livelihood project with the objective of making it selfsufficient and providing for the salary of a day-care center teacher. This kind of module — a day-care center, a livelihood project and a primary health care clinic — has been done in four places, but Samakana (urban poor women's group) have targeted 36 areas.
Our last strategy is international solidarity. We realize that our struggle is not just national, but international. And it is good for our women to really see what is happening all over the world. Our WISAP program (Women's International Solidarity Affairs Philippines), which we sponsor every year, arranges exposure programs for women who come from all over the world. • How did you celebrate March 8 this
Last March we had our usual women's week. We started it out with a torch parade, together with other groups. The theme was "Women say no to total war".2 We realize that total war is the thing that makes the women suffer so much now in the Philippines. They are the ones affected by what the military and vigilante groups are doing. After that we had a tiangue— a bazaar — for the first time at Quiapo, in the popular market center of Manila. It was at the same time a livelihood project for the women because they could market what they were doing in their sewing groups. It really interested people who wanted to find out what GABRIELA was doing. We also had a playgroup where we taught children from the neighborhood many games. It was very interesting. And then we had a seminar on women and health. We had as speakers a woman worker, a peasant woman, an urban poor woman — on the other side were the doctors and someone from the department of health. We listened to the women describing the different health hazards women face in their particular situations. The Medical Action Group outlined a health project for women which is more community- than hospital-based.
On March 9, we had a demonstration from Plaza Miranda to Mendiola. One significant thing was that despite GABRIELA'S being alone in this march, there were about 5,000 women coming from different provincial contingents. A men's contingent joined and occupied the back portion of the march. I think it is good to show that we are not an anti-male movement, as we are really for an egalitarian society where men and women have the opportunity to develop a better society and not be adversaries.
A very important event which highlighted women's week was the women's tribunal on March 22. Since we had the 30 WISAP women with us already, we asked 10 of them to act as international jury, and we invited a jurist from India just for that. Twelve documented cases of violation of women's rights were presented. There was
PHILIPPINES one touching incident, a woman who was a victim of a hand grenade. Her eye was out, she is pregnant and half her body is paralyzed. Three women had to bring her up to the stage and she gave her testimony. The judges made a very good statement. Before the tribunal we had a liturgical service and they made me the babaylan (priestess). We kind of went back to the old times when there was a babaylan. • When you say that GABRIELA was alone in the march, does this mean that other women's groups not in GABRIELA also had their own marches?
No, there was no other march. There were other activities, which GABRIELA also joined. Like for instance there was a symposium on women and labor, where some women from GABRIELA were speakers. There was another bazaar at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, and we also participated there despite having our own event in Quiapo. There were lots of cultural and musical numbers and other activities like book launchings. much the need to do this march against total war, because this issue is very important for women. As a woman from Pampanga said, organizations from functioning, but the livelihoods of the people were being threatened too. The fact that they could not go out to the fields before 7am and after 4pm limited the work they could do. • What problems are being encountered in the work of organizing women?
Among grassroots women, it is easy to organize. With middle-class women, it can be very difficult. However, the main problem now in grassroots organizing is the vigilante groups. There is a systematic propaganda against GABRIELA, lumping us together with all the organizations which they consider communist fronts. Quite seriously, we have been victims of vigilante activities. Three women members of AMIHAN were killed, two of them decapitated, and one who was pregnant was opened up. In regions like Panay and Davao, our members cannot meet. Chairpersons of the different organizations have been forced to go to the local precincts to surrender. If they do not do so, their houses are strafed. • Do you know what importance is presently given to the women's struggle by the underground organizations of the National Democratic Movement?
There is a women's movement within the underground struggle, MAKIBAKA. GABRIELA is not part of MAKIBAKA, and viceversa. My impression is that before the un2. In 1987, President Corazon Aquino declared "total war" against the communist guerrillas of the New People's Army and the National Democratic Front. 3. The vigilante groups are civilian anti-communist or ganizations, often directly linked to the army, spreading terror in the provinces and some parts of MetroManila. Amnesty International has published a docu- 15 ment, warning against this very grave development. July 11, 1988 • #145 International Viewpoint
from different backgrounds; and iturgical services that have consciously taken the perspective of women. *
PHILIPPINES derground movement used to consider the women issue as a "secondary contradiction", but that the women involved in this struggle have been more successful today in persuading the whole movement to take the women's cause for its own and not to leave it to the women alone. • What difficulties do women's organtzations like the KMK meet, particularly facing a bigger counterpart like the trade-union federation KMU (Kilusang Mayo Uno or May 1 Movement)? How would these work together concretely?
Regarding the KMK and the KMU, actually the relationship is such that the KMK is not under the KMU. The KMK serves as the women's desk of the KMU, but the KMK is an autonomous organization, with its own program and leadership, and even its own funding. There are women in the KMU who are not under the KMK. Of course there are practical problems, like in marches — are the women going to come together under one banner or are they going to join the different sectoral contingents? The understanding on this concrete point has been to still have a women's contingent, and when women join the different sectors they carry the GABRIELA banner with them too. • How about the other women's groups? How do they differ from GABRIELA?
Well, it depends. KABAPA, led by Aida Lava, also works with peasant women. We coordinate with them a lot, and their concer is specifically around women and peace. The others, like Kalayaan and Pilipina, are important organizations and have their own activities. There is also Lakas ng Kababaihan, the women's contingent of
BISIG and the more traditional women's groups. Now, one must also mention the governmental National Commission on Women. Remy Rikken's appointment to that office has given the commission a new perspective, and she has given it an interest in working with non-govermental organizations, because before they just worked by themselves. The National Commission has initiated a lot of consultations — for example, on research, on health, on mass media and so on.
In addition, a new initiative is the establishment of the Women in Development Foundation. Some women in government are here, including myself and other individuals. We had an Urduja congress in the province of Pangasinan, where about a women were mobilized. Two things were decided in that seminar: First, to form a women and development foundation that will be concerned about how women are affected by development, in what way women can analyze, criticize, the present economic scheme, and how they can take part in it. Second, we are preparing legislation, asking the government to set aside a fund for women's economic development, and to create women's bureaux in all departments of the government under a vice-minister. • Has the fact that Cory Aquino Is a woman helped to advance the women's struggle?
I don't think she is there because she is a woman, but in spite of her being a woman. In an interview, she was asked if she was a feminist. She said she was not in an organizational way, but that she is for the rights of women. What one can see is a conviction that there should be legislation with special focus on women. She also proclaimed a women's month. In actual fact, however, there is nothing new, nothing really different in her policies. • Many readers of IV will be surprised that the head of GABRIELA is a sister...
Yes, I suppose so. (She laughs.) There is also oppression of women in the church, you know! More than that, there is the whole question of the religious roots of oppression, even affecting people outside the church. Therefore, as a religious woman, I should be very much involved in seeing to it that religion should be a liberating force rather than an oppressive force towards women. • The Philippines is one of the few countries which still does not recognize divorce... What are the discussions on Issues like abortion and divorce?
These issues have not really been tackled yet in the Philippines. In GABRIELA, it is the commission on the reproductive rights of women where discussions on these issues are beginning. I think it is a question of efficiency, here. If GABRIELA starts to organize on these issues, nobody will listen to us. Even now, this is the subject of black propaganda. For example, when we objected to the provision on abortion being in the constitution — without even posing any argument for or against abortion, but simply saying that a provision of this nature need not be in the constitution - we received a lot of criticisms. It is very difficult. • Even in the feminist milleu?
There is a TV show called Woman Watch. In this program there are discussions about abortion and divorce. In fact in one show which discussed divorce, all the women asked were in favour for divorce, for case-to-case divorce [based on individual cases].
Women's Studies books SISTER Mary John Mananzan, OSB, has edited two books In the Wormen's Studies Series, published by the Institute of Women's Studies, St. Scholastica's College, Manila. The first of the series, Essays on Women, published in 1987, is a compilation of articles, speeches and extracts from dissertations that brings together facts and Ideas about the status of Filipino women in history, the emergence and development of the worens movement and the ongoing debates. It likewise documents anti-women laws In the Philippine Civil Code, the situation of rural women, the sexual exploitation of women and children, prostitution and sex tourism.
The second book of the serles, Woren and Religion, published in 1988, has a more specific contribution as it delves Into women perspectives of religion. There are three parts to the book: a theoretical framework; testimonies on negative and positive Influences of religion on lives of women 16 International Viewpoint #145 • July 11, 1988
I don't think a divorce law will be passed at this time even if women senators like Nikki Coseteng and Shahani are positive about case-to-case divorce. But I must say that abortion and contraception are not really being discussed, even if 80 per cent of middle-class women do use contraception and if there are many abortions going on. It is simply not discussed. There is no way yet to face the whole issue. •Any concluding remarks?
One thing I'd like to say. I think it is the women's movement that is the flicker of faith in the Philippines. It is only the women's movement that can transcend ideology when it comes to issues. When there was the issue on having women's rights in the Constitution, all of us came, from the right to the left. I think women can talk together more. * 4. BISIG, meaning "arm", is the acronym for an independent socialist organization in the Philippines. 5. Princess Urduja of Pangasinan was the most famous of the women leaders of pre-Spanish society. Skilled in the use of weapons, she headed an army of women.