Philippines: A Nation in the Grip of a Grave Crisis, Implications on the Lives of Grassroots Women
(Paper presented at the round table discussion on “State Violence and Women Human Rights,” at the Crown Nai Yang Suite Hotel, Phuket, Thailand, sponsored by the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD), on August 8-9, 2005)
Presented by: Teresita Vistro AMIHAN, National Federation of Peasant Women – Philippines

Good Morning Sisters!

Since the last quarter of 2004, a surge of killings, abductions and disappearances have swept the country. The killings reached a peak in the month of March where almost daily, members of people’s organizations, priests, lawyers, journalists, progressive legislators have been killed. The killings of journalists have reached an alarming proportion, enough for the Philippines to be named the “most murderous country,” for journalists by the New York – based Committee to Protect Journalists and the Southeast Asian Press Alliance.

rally at the department of agriculture

As of April, 2005, 40 peasant leaders, members and advocates have been slain by suspected elements of the government military forces. Most of those slain come from Central Luzon, and it is widely believed that the killings are related to the unrest obtaining at the Hacienda Luisita, a 6,000 hectare sugar estate owned by the family of former President Corazon Aquino. In November, 2004, the 5,000 - strong unions of agricultural farm and industrial workers staged a strike. This was violently dispersed by elements of the Northern Luzon Command of the Philippine Army, resulting to the death of seven strikers, scores incarcerated including a pregnant woman, and injured hundred others, including women farm workers and their children. The string of killings after the bloody massacre involved local government officials, farmer leaders and church people who openly and actively supported the Hacienda Luisita farm workers’ strike. To date, not one case have been brought to justice.Not even the massacre of the striking workers.

The Gabriela Women’s partylist have recorded a total of 14 women killed since June, 2001. Amihan for its part is not spared of human rights violations. Amihan leader, Myrna Tabata, 39 years old, from Colambutan Settlement, Tudela, Misamiz Occidental in Mindanao, who was seven months pregnant was gunned down inside her house last November 11,2004 as she was feeding her other child. She died on the spot, including her unborn child.

Beth Alfiler, a peasant woman organizer in Ilocos Sur in Northern Philippines, was a witness to the assassination of a co-human rights worker, right in the middle of a huge and busy market in Baguio City, in March, 2005. The sight of her fellow human rights worker right beside her, slumped on his face on the cemented pavement of the market with blood oozing out of his ear and dead, had stunned her, and made her immobile for about ten to fifteen minutes. When she finally found her senses, the police were already at the site, and that was only the time that she managed to get her cellphone and called a few friends for help. That incident traumatized her for months, she just kept on crying. It took months before she felt at ease sharing to people the whole incident and how she felt that time.

Riza Fanilag, an organizer of peasant women in Misamis Occidental in Mindanao, witnessed the abduction of a co-worker and friend during one of their meetings. She felt so guilty after the incident especially when she learned, that her friend was heavily tortured by the military. She said: “I felt so guilty, I wasn’t able to do anything while my friend and co-worker was abducted, right beside me by hooded fully armed military men, who barged into our meeting place. I can not even consider myself a human rights defender after that incident. But now, I realized I am really just an ordinary human being, who can be weak at times.”

state of the nation address

Esmeralda Ecat, a peasant woman leader from Leyte in the Visayas, have been subjected to torture for almost 24 hours, in front of her two young children by the military. Esmie as she is fondly called by friends and fellow workers, was forcibly dragged out of her house in the evening of May 27, 2005, by military men, with her two children and was brought to a place near a river. The entire evening, the military kept asking her at gun point to tell them where the camp of the rebel armed group, the New People’s Army (NPA)is located and also for her divulge to them, who among the villagers are extending food and other support to the armed group.At one time during the interrogation, the commander of the group ordered one of his men to boil water in a huge kettle, and threatened Esmie and said: “If you do not give us information we will pour the boiling water on you and then we will skin you alive from head to toe.” While she was interrogated, another military team raided her house and stole most of her belongings. The military were forced to release her when the military saw her catching her breath and almost on the verge of fainting, and when she told them she has a heart ailment. The following day, fearing another “invitation” for “questioning” she fled left her village with her two children with meager belongings. She now lives in a makeshift hut made of bamboo and sack, along with other villagers who left their homes because of massive military operations

The house of Amihan national chairperson, Carmen Buena in Barangay San Nicolas, Sta Ana, Pampanga was raided by the military in April, 2003, on suspicion that she is coddling members of the rebel group New People’s Army (NPA).She courageously allowed the military men to search her home, but with a clear warning for the military not to plant anything that would implicate her with the NPA. The military found nothing in her house. She was one of the peasant leaders who stayed on at the picketline of the Hacienda Luisita farmworkers. She was also one of those who openly spoke against the military, especially after the November 16, 2004 massacre of striking farm workers. This earned her the ire of the military who since then have been hunting her down. Relatives and friends have advised Carmen against going back home to her barangay on information that unidentified men kept looking for her asking for her whereabouts. The assassination of Ben Concepcion, an officer of the Pampanga peasant organization, and a close acquaintance of Carmen Buena, lent validity to her friends and relatives’ warnings of danger to her life. Making matters worse, only last month, a military detachment was set up in her barangay. Military men now frequently visit the house of Carmen. But her husband and family members refuse to be intimidated. They consistently assert that what Carmen is doing is just for the good of poor farmers not only in Pampanga, but in other places as well.

Also in April of this year progressive groups discovered the existence of a video cassette diskette entitled “Knowing the Enemy: Are we Missing the Point?” which contained a powerpoint presentation of what the military tagged as communist fronts and therefore enemies of the state. Included in the groups and organizations contained in the VCD are people’s organizations and progressive non government organizations. Amihan, unfortunately is one of the organizations listed. It also included two media organizations, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines and the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), church groups including the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines(CBCP), the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines(AMRSP) and the National Council of Churches of the Philippines(NCCP). This is clearly an attempt at intimidating groups critical to the military and the Arroyo government, but a more chilling implication, is that with such a listing there will virtually be no stopping for the military men in the fields and their allied organizations to do surveillance work, harassment and even assassinations on people working in these legitimate people’s organizations.

state of the nation address

That the military is training their guns on leaders of legal democratic organizations is validated even more when a notorious military general was quoted in newspapers as saying:” the real leaders behind the revolution are the ones in the militant organizations, those who organize rallies.” Clearly, the object of the military and the government is to quell legitimate dissent and opposition to the anti-peasant, anti-women and anti-people policies of the present government. It was the same military general who had vowed to cripple the legal mass movement in the provinces of Samar and Leyte, in two months. The same way, he bragged, he had wiped out the legal progressive movement in the province of Mindoro Oriental. Human rights organizations had given him the title “butcher of Mindoro,” for his record of human rights violations he committed in the island.

Likewise, in the Mindanao island in the south, forced evacuations of civilians continue, as the military continue without let up their pursuit of the “Abu Sayaf” group of Muslim terrorists, responsible for the kidnapping and killing of a multitude of civilians including at least three Americans.

Indeed in these times of intensifying repression,there is no other way for legal democratic organizations to address this deteriorating political situation but to expose and oppose these violations and hold this government accountable for its failure to stop the intensifying violation of human rights.

And while this is the situation so far, other avenues and opportunities are opened up,which we can make use of to advance our demand for a stop to militarization and justice to victims of political repression. One such situation, is the growing clamor for the resignation, impeachment or ouster of President Macapagal-Arroyo.

In June of this year, a CD containing a phone conversation between Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and a Commission on Elections officer named Virgilio Garcillano, about rigging the 2004 elections in Mindanao that would give Arroyo a million lead over her next opponent, was exposed by a lawyer close to the deposed president Estrada. This triggered huge mass protests demanding her resignation. The plot thickened and the people became more enraged when Arroyo admitted on prime television, that it was her voice on the tape, that she really did call a Commission on Elections officer, which she did not name. She defended herself saying she only wanted to protect her votes. Moreover she called that act “a lapse in judgement,” not an act of cheating, and that she lawfully won in the last elections.

A broad spectrum of people’s organizations, non government organizations, business, church, schools and universities, movie personalities, respected legal luminaries and patriotic individuals, did not believe her and continued to demand for her resignation. Subsequently, 10 members of her Cabinet resigned and called for her resignation followed by the president of the Senate of the Philippines, President, Franklin Drillon and former President Corazon Aquino. But Gloria Macapagal Arroyo refuses to step down.

stop pol killing press conference

An impeachment complaint was filed at the opening of the 13th session of the House of representatives, coinciding with Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s delivery of her annual State of the Nation Address (SONA). Aside from election cheating, our allies in Congress and party list representatives which we supported during the elections, were successful in putting the issue of political killings as one of the basis for the impeachment complaint filed. Unfortunately the impeachment complaint filed at the house of Representatives, failed to get the necessary 79 votes or 1/3 of the 236-member House of Representatives, to transmit to the Senate the complaint for the impeachment trial to commence. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s allies in Congress used the power of their numbers to spare Gloria of the impeachment process. The GMA government rejoiced,declared that it is time to move on and offered the olive branch of peace and reconciliation.

But nobody is accepting the offer of reconciliation. Opinion poll surveys continue to register people’s deep disgust over GMA’s continued hanging on to power. In a recent Social Weather Station (SWS) survey, 79% of the respondents of the survey want Gloria Ousted, 64% want Gloria to Resign, and 51% want Gloria to be removed by another people power. Days of disquiet continue to hover in our daily lives as Filipinos. With the impeachment process quashed, so was the only constitutional venue with which to ferret out the truth of whether she, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo really cheated or not in the 2004 elections. And there goes the dilemma. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said she did not cheat. But evidences on the contrary abound in all corners and in all places. The government and the church hierarchy continue to prescribe constitutional process as the only way out of this dilemma. The Philippine constitution allows only one impeachment complaint to be filed in a given year to any public official.

But the people’s organizations like Amihan do not let themselves be circumscribed by what the government says is constitutional. We stand on the position that legitimate people’s action reflecting the people’s will is what is constitutional. So we continue to arouse,organize and mobilize our constituents, the peasants about this issue. We likewise have joined sectoral and multisectoral formations for the common cause of removing Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who cheated her way to the presidency and has committed human rights violations on the people.

We are likewise part of a process that is now working for a post Gloria Macapagal Arroyo agenda, starting with the establishment of a people’s transition council, which shall oversee the formation of a new government, put forward a new program of government at a time frame to be agreed upon by the people’s council. This transition council shall be composed of representatives of the various sectors of the Philippine society most especially those that joined in the movement for the ouster of Arroyo. The immediate program of the transition council include:

1. Immediate economic relief, including debt repudiation and review of the anti-people economic policies such as the EVAT;
2. Implementation of a genuine agrarian reform and nationalist industrialization;
3. Justice to all victims of human rights violations and state repression;
4. Resumption of peace talks between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front; and between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines
5. Assert National Sovereignty, by repealing anti-people treaties and policies such as the Mining Act of 1995 and the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) and the Mutual Logistics and Supply Agreement (MLSA) with the United States.
6. A stop to the impositions of the IMF-WB and the WTO.
   (source: Bayan primer on People Power and the Transition Council)

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as the primary source of the political crisis is likewise the cause of the fast deterioration of an economy already on the verge of collapse, leaving the poor people especially the poor women as always are on the losing end. Prices of basic commodities and services kept on going up,oil price increases continue unabated and worse taken advantaged of by oil companies to amass more profits, the government just opts to watch the situation sitting down, claiming the oil industry is already deregulated, the government can no longer intervene in its operations. Oil prices went up 52 times since Arroyo came to power. As if this were not enough the Arroyo government slammed through our throats a new IMF-backed tax measure which will increase by 20% the tax levied on the prices of basic commodities and services including oil products. It is estimated that when this law is implemented next month, an estimated P2 increase will slapped for every liter of gasoline. The domino effect of this increase on the prices of food and other basic commodities will again be unbearable especially for the poor women who are the ones burdened of making ends meet to keep their families alive.

And while the prices of commodities and services continue to go up, there are no corresponding increases in the wages of workers. The farmers on the other hand are continually burdened with low farmgate prices of their agricultural products, while the cost of production continue to increase.

The financial crisis confronting the economy continues and will continue till eternity as long as the government does not the confront the issue of international usury engulfing the debt issue. The debt payment continue to bleed the country dry of the needed dollar resources to keep the economy going. In the 2005 national budget of P907 billion, P645 billion goes to principal amortization and interest payments. In the proposed 2006 national budget of P1.05 trillion, about P721 billion will go to principal amortization and interest payments. This is clearly an immoral situation, paying almost 2/3 of the government budget to international lending institutions, when recent statistics show that 15.5% or 12 million Filipinos live on a mere one dollar a day; 47.7% or 37 million live on less that $2 a day.

The government is dead set on implementing the EVAT law as the proceeds of the collection of this tax will be used to pay the country’s debt .Eyed as additional sources of funds for debt payments and also to fill in the government’s budget deficit are more borrowings, and sale of government assets. The government is also pinning its hopes on the infusion into the economy of the remittances of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), which registered a record high of $8.5 billion in 2004. Also in the government’s wish lists are foreign investments, and proceeds from the tourism industry. Wishes that hardly can come true as the political situation deteriorates each day.

The faster Gloria Macapagal Arroyo gets out of office, the greater is the hope of saving the economy from further deterioration and plunder. This government does not think twice is splurging US$75,000 a month for a contract of one year to a US lobbying firm to seek funding support with the US government of its efforts to change the constitution. She also did not think twice when she used the P728 million agriculture fund for her campaign in the 2004 elections.That fund never reached its intended beneficiaries – the farmers. That big amount could have fed millions of impoverished farming families who do not have enough earnings to feed their families.

The list of corruption and cheating committed by the government of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo can go on. So are the cases of human rights violations that continue to be committed by her military. And people’s outrage we believe will also not end until Gloria is driven out of Malacanang!