Statement
Philippine Women Centre of British Columbia

Forward the militant struggle of women! Heighten our struggle for genuine equality, development and a just and lasting peace!

March 8, 2006

As overseas Filipino women in Canada, we extend our warmest and most militant greetings on International Women’s Day to all those, women and men, struggling for genuine equality, democracy, development, and a just and lasting peace!

Today, we pay tribute to the women that came before us. Through their militant, hard struggles, they provided us with valuable lessons that ground our current struggle for genuine equality, development and peace. We honour the multitude of women who sacrificed and some who laid down their lives for the just cause of women and the greater cause of the Filipino people’s struggle for genuine national freedom and democracy.

From Gabriela Silang, who took up arms against Spanish colonizers in 1763; to Lorena Barros, who founded MAKIBAKA in 1971 – the first Filipino women’s national democratic organization and who was killed by the military; to the young, peasant and working women today engaged in revolutionary struggle, we, as Filipino women, indeed have a long tradition of militancy from which we draw our inspiration. They provided the vital inspiration we need to advance the struggle to break the chains of feudalism, patriarchy, and imperialism.

Today, in particular we salute the defiance and determination of Congresswoman Liza Maza. facing arrest on charges of ‘rebellion’ in the Philippines. As the only female pro-woman, pro-people, and progressive parliamentarian, she is suffering political persecution by Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Congresswoman Maza is a staunch critic of Arroyo’s administration, and stands consistently with the people in her call for Arroyo to step down. Unlike the President, Congresswoman Maza was lawfully elected into Congress on her pro-woman and pro-people platform, which captured the imagination and basic aspirations of the peasant, working, young and urban poor women. Now, because of her progressive politics she is being threatened.

Arroyo’s persecution of Maza and other pro-people parliamentarians and patriotic activists is shameful especially as evidence showed Arroyo’s fraud in the last elections that made her president, and the corruption that emerged in the jueteng scandal linked to her husband.

For Filipino women in Canada, we find Arroyo’s latest attacks even more shameful because we actively support and participate in the Filipino people’s struggle to oust Arroyo.

Arroyo has been proven to be all-too eager to export and traffic Filipino women. She vigorously exports Filipinos, especially women, for cheap labor that serve global, neo-liberal policies.  Escaping her responsibility to provide genuine development and opportunities for livelihood in the Philippines, Arroyo has sharpened up the Labor Export Policy (LEP) and aims to traffic at least 1 million Filipinos per year. The LEP already exports 3,000 Filipinos daily to 186 countries where 70% are women.

The Live-In-Caregiver Program (LCP) of Canada is complicit with the Philippine government’s trafficking of Filipino women.

In Canada, we suffer modern slavery as live-in caregivers.  Under Canadian government policies, we pay tax on lower than minimum wages, pay head tax fees for mandatory sponsorships of our children and spouses, and have little or no access to health care and social services.  We are under constant threat of deportation for any transgression of our temporary visa requirements even when we raise legitimate complaints about the injustices to our rights as workers, and abuses as women.  As women of colour from the Third World leaving their families due to economic poverty, the LCP exposes itself as an anti-woman and racist policy.

On this day we call for international solidarity to bring down Arroyo’s government, free Liza Maza and the other six parliamentarians, and scrap the LCP in Canada. Today, we honour Filipino women and their continued struggle, demanding peace with justice for all Filipinos worldwide, genuine democracy towards our national liberation, and cease our exploitation at home and abroad!

Stop political repression in the Philippines!

Oust Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo!

Scrap the racist and anti-woman Live-in Caregiver Program!

Forward our struggle for genuine equality, development, and a just and lasting peace!

Long live international solidarity!