Women’s Fight in Male-dominated Congress
New women’s party promises to make a difference

“From the beginning,” the Gabriela Women’s Party’s leading nominee Liza Largoza-Maza says, “our platform is largely for the poor and marginalized women…Most women suffer from double marginalization: they are marginalized as a class and as a gender. Although violence against women and rape have been considerably discussed, the issues of working women have not been as highlighted.”

By Alexander Martin Remollino 
Bulatlat.com

A society free from violence and discrimination against women is on top of the electoral platform of a new women’s political party. And its nominees, led by the former secretary general of Gabriela, seek to use the male-dominated Congress as a forum to promote equal rights for women, among others.

Stalwarts of the Gabriela women’s alliance, human rights lawyers, social workers and women labor and peasant leaders are bringing the women’s struggle for equal rights and against violence a step forward as they spearhead the Gabriela Women’s Party (GWP) in the May party-list election for Congress. It is campaigning on the slogan, “BABAI” – “Babae, Bata, Bayan – Ipaglaban!” (Women, Children, People – Fight).

To stress the importance of the women’s agenda – and Gabriela’s proven broad grassroots constituency – GWP is fielding no less than nine nominees for the party-list contest. All of its nominees are seasoned activists and leaders in the women’s movement for equality and against violence.

GWP’s standard bearer is former Bayan Muna Rep. Liza Largoza-Maza, former secretary general of Gabriela. Maza, who hails from San Pablo City, Laguna and a former University of the Philippines student activist, used to be a Bayan Muna representative.

In the House, Maza, who also used to teach in college, initiated and co-authored two important bills: the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act and the Anti-Abuse of Women in Intimate Relationships Act. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is set to sign the landmark bills on March 8 which marks the International Women’s Day.

The first law, the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act, criminalizes sex trafficking which involves bringing a person across borders in order to sell her for prostitution, child labor, and so on. The second act defines abuse of women in intimate relationships as a crime.

Maza says that bills concerning reproductive rights, the concerns and issues of working women, and so-called “equality bills” (such as one seeking to equalize punishments for concubinage, on the part of men, and adultery, on the part of women) are included in GWP’s legislative agenda.

Human rights lawyer, social worker

GWP’s second nominee is Luzviminda Ilagan, a human rights lawyer from Mindanao, anti-dictatorship activist, and former Davao councilor. Third nominee is Maria Lourdes Turalde-Jarabe, a BS Social Work graduate of Miriam College (cum laude), a college teacher and chair of the National Capital Region chapter of Gabriela.

The other nominees are: Nenita Miranda-Tampico, GWP’s director for labor concerns and spokesperson of the Koalisyon Laban sa Kontraktwalisasyon; Jacqueline Carińo, executive director of the Cordillera Women’s Education and Resource Center and a proud member of the Ibaloi tribe; Nenita Ledesma-Cherneguin, chair of the Kilusan ng mga Manggagawang Kababaihan since 1986; Evelyn Carias, a recognized leader of Moro women in Davao; Marites Legaspi-Pielago, chair of Bicolana-Gabriela besides being a regional coordinator of the Church-Based Consumers’ Movement and a deaconess of the United Methodist Church; and Atel Hijos, a teacher who has figured prominently in campaigns against white slavery, prostitution, sex trafficking, and domestic violence.

The Gabriela Women’s Party was founded on Oct. 28, 2000 in St. Theresa’s College, Quezon City by leaders and members of Gabriela. (Gabriela, a national alliance of women’s organizations founded in 1984 or two years before the fall of the Marcos dictatorship.) Nominee Miranda-Tampico, recalls that as early as during the first party-list elections in 1998, Gabriela already had the idea of participating in the party-list system. “But we first agreed to help in campaigning for Bayan Muna to gain concrete experiences in participating in the party-list system,” she said. Bayan Muna was founded in 1999 and topped the 2001 party-list elections.

Maza was chosen to represent women under Bayan Muna as the third nominee. “So she was the one who carried forth the issues of women. Liza tackled, for instance, women’s labor contractualization and other issues,” Miranda-Tampico also said.

Women’s party with a difference

So how will GWP differ from other parties that package themselves as women’s parties, and how will its party-list nominees, if they make it to Congress, differ from other women public officials?

“Just because a president or a legislator is a woman doesn’t mean she will be pro-women, and pro-women masses at that,” says third nominee Turalde-Jarabe. “Because they carry with them their class interests or class backgrounds.”

“From the beginning,” Maza on the other hand explains, “we have made it clear that our platform is largely for the poor and marginalized women. Because if we look at the intent of the party-list system, we see that it is geared toward the marginalized. And women are of course marginalized as women, and poor women are also marginalized for being poor. So most of our women suffer from double marginalization: they are marginalized as a class, and they are marginalized as a gender. Issues such as violence against women and rape have been considerably discussed, but the issues of working women have not been as highlighted.”

The GWP’s platform of action encompasses not only women, but also children and the family and the nation. Children and the family, because, in the words of Miranda-Tampico, “As women we have long accepted our responsibility to children. A good number of women are mothers who are the ones maintaining the home.”

The nation, because according to Turalbe-Jarabe, “Women’s issues are not divorced from the rest of the issues concerning society as a whole.”

Equal footing

The GWP, its nominees say, is committed to advancing a legislative agenda that upholds the right of women to live in a society free from violence and discrimination against women, be treated on an equal footing with men in the workplace, participate freely in all fields of social endeavor, benefit from social services; to marry based on free will and be treated with respect and dignity in the family and have their children adequately supported.

It also upholds gay and lesbian rights and urges society to respect the freedom of the individual to choose his or her sexual orientation.

The GWP also asserts the sovereignty of the nation and the right of its people to protect their patrimony; promotes an independent foreign policy that would be beneficial to the country economically and security-wise; and upholds the right of women to a government that is truly democratic and genuinely represents the many.

Turalde-Jarabe also says that GWP is determined to make education and health services accessible to the youth and children.

Since the Philippines has as yet no strong women’s cote, how does GWP expect to fare in the party-list elections? Miranda-Tampinco says that in past elections women voted not on the basis of their issues. GWP, she says, is responding to this by organizing in communities based on the party’s platform and issues.

Based on Commission on Election reports, one to two percent more women registered as voters than men.

Gabriela leaders keep no illusions however about how far Congress – which is presently represented mostly by male congressmen many of them with elitist roots and feudal politics – will go as far as women’s and people’s basic issues are concerned. To them the women’s equal rights advocacy will remain anchored in the parliament of the streets and solidly linked to the broader struggle for genuine freedom and democracy. Congress will just be another place where women’s voice will be heard. Bulatlat.com

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