7 March 2018

Rodrigo Duterte and his regime relentlessly trample on women’s rights. His contempt for women knows no limits. His policies result in hardships, especially for the toiling women. From his unamusing rape jokes, disparages and threats, Duterte clearly is the ugly face of the feudal and patriarchal aspect of a social system which exploits and oppresses women.

Among the latest of Duterte’s tirades against women is his direct order for soldiers to shoot women Red fighters in their vagina to make them worthless. He also ridiculed women Red fighters for “leaving behind” their children when they go back to the armed struggle. For Duterte, women are mere sex objects and chattels for men. He cannot accept that women play greater roles in social struggles and transformation.

Duterte is inciting his troops to commit crimes and brutalities against the people, whether they are civilians or combatants. He openly endorses rape and other forms of sexual violence against women as a tool of his dirty war, Oplan Kapayapaan. He aims to scare off women and trample on their dignity. Operating troops of the AFP already have a long list of atrocious fascist crimes. These include the rape of a 14-year old Lumad girl by at least three soldiers in Talaingod, Davao del Norte on July 2015. On July 2016, 8th IB troopers shot dead a pregnant woman in Bukidnon.

Operating soldiers are known for their vulgar attitude and disrespect towards women. In the Duterte’s regime brutal fascist war, more and more women fall victim to killings, repression, illegal arrest and detention. In Mindanao, women, especially Moro women, suffer under martial law. Up to now, hundreds of thousands of women and their children suffer in evacuation centers and are prevented from going back to their homes in Marawi.

At the same time, the fascist military utilizes deception and seduction by romantic liaisons to render women passive and turn them away from the struggle. Peasants, especially women peasants, suffer slave-like oppression and grave forms of feudal exploitation in the countryside. The Duterte regime defends large land monopolies of big landlords and plantations. His declaration for free land distribution is clearly a lie as his regime prioritizes the reclassification of land to give way to massive land conversion of agricultural lands.

Duterte’s free irrigation is worthless to most farmers due to the absence of genuine land reform and because only a small fraction of farmlands is irrigated.

Women workers continue to suffer from low wages and inhuman working conditions. They are victims of contractualization. As workers, they endure high unemployment rates, low-level and precarious employment, especially during last year’s big job fall (more than 600,000 jobs lost).

Despite Duterte’s stunts, he cannot hide the fact that his regime is worthless in defending migrant workers’ rights and welfare, especially women migrants, and he has failed to give them alternative jobs. The Duterte regime’s measures and policies which continued the pro-imperialist neoliberal policies of the previous regimes have brought about extreme hardships to women.

At the start of the year, the people, especially women and other heads of households, endured high prices of goods and services due to additional and new taxes brought about by the TRAIN law. They are further victimized by the artificial rice shortage engendered by Duterte’s friend Manuel Piñol to continue with, and control, rice importation. Hundreds of children are victimized by bureaucratic corruption and irresponsibility of successive regimes in the unfolding tragedy of the experimental Dengvaxia vaccine. In the face of these hardships, the ruling reactionary state aims to keep women passive, meek and apolitical.

They are reduced to the confines of their households—as wives, mothers, sisters or daughters – who exist solely to serve the male members of their families. But women have long been breaking out of this mold. In the face of grave oppression, they rise in their numbers to participate in various struggles.

For these women, their participation in these struggles is the first step towards liberation. In struggle, they lift their prestige and status as women. They break the dominant feudal and patriarchal view on women as second class citizens. They actively contribute to ending the oppressive and exploitative semifeudal and semicolonial and construction of a democratic and progressive system. Hundreds of thousands of women are members of revolutionary mass organizations and other national-democratic associations and movements.

There are many women in the New People’s Army, especially coming from the ranks of the toiling masses. They decided to participate in the armed struggle and carry out various revolutionary tasks. The Filipino people look up to them. They serve as commanders, political guides, medics, supply and education officers, literacy teachers and other fields of work in different levels of the people’s army. No task or opportunity are denied to them just because they are women. Many of the Communist Party of the Philippines’ leaders are women.

The NPA has decreed that women should be treated as equals and their rights oberved at all times. Etched in its basic rules—the Three Points of Discipline and Eight Points to Remember (more known as Tres-Otso)—is strict adherence to respecting women’s rights and the proper way to treat and speak to them. Women’s equal rights to men is also in the CPP’s constitution, program and other regulations, including inside marriages. In the face of the US-Duterte regime’s oppression, violence, vulgarity and low regard, women have no choice but the rise up against its fascism. Women should persevere in the national-democratic struggle and advance in various forms of armed and unarmed struggle. The Party calls on all women workers, peasants and students to join the New People’s Army and participate in the protracted people’s war nationwide. ANG BAYAN

Kaming mga kababaihang bilanggong pulitikal sa Camp Bagong Diwa sa Taguig City Jail ay nakikiisa sa paggunita sa pandaigdigang araw ng kababaihan.

Inaresto at ikinulong kami sa panahon ng rehimen ni Arroyo at rehimen ni Benigno Aquino III. Sinampahan ng mga gawa-gawang kasong kriminal.

Hanggang sa kasalukuyan ay nagtitiis pa rin sa napakasikip na kulungan sa kabila ng pangako ni Pangulong Duterte na palayain ang lahat ng bilanggong pulitikal sa bansa. Sa paggunita sa mahalagang araw ng kababaihan, patuloy naming ipinapanawagan sa pangulo – Free All our Sisters, Free All Political Prisoners sa buong bansa.

Ang agarang pagpapalaya sa mga political prisoners ay usapin ng hustisya. Bukod pa sa napagkasunduan ito sa Peace Talks sa pagitan ng Gubyerno ng Republika ng Pilipinas (GPH) at ng National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), obligasyon din ng GPH ang pagpapatupad ng Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law dahil pumirma siya rito.

Nananawagan din kami sa administrasyong Duterte na ipagpatuloy ang Peace Talks sa pagitan ng GPH at NDFP para maisulong ang makabayan at demokratikong adhikain ng mga kababaihan at mamamayan.

Humihiling din kami ng suporta sa mamamayan na lalo pang palakasin ang kilusang masa at kilusan ng kababaihan para palayain ang lahat ng bilanggong pulitikal at para makamit ang tunay na kapayapaan na nakabatay sa hustisya sa buong bansa.

Free All our Sisters! Free All Political Prisoners!
Ituloy ang Peace Talks sa pagitan ng GPH at NDFP! Palakasin ang pakikibaka ng sambayanan!

Signed: Taguig City Jail – Female Dormitory, Camp Bagong Diwa
Gemma Carag Arlene Panea Rhea Pareja Presentacion Saluta Maria Miradel Torres

Karapatan condemns the listing of more than 600 persons, human rights defenders and critics of the Duterte government in the proscription petition filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ), through Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Peter Ong, at a regional court in Manila on February 21, 2018.

The petition not only seeks to declare the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) as terrorist organizations but also named individuals as their supposed leaders or members, including those who are dead, missing and members of paramilitary units accused of killing Lumads in Mindanao.

“There is no doubt that the filing of the petition is an effort to sow fear and panic among Duterte’s detractors, subjectively prepare the public for more intense political repression, and be the front act of a crackdown against the dictator wannabe’s critics. The list of leaders and members is a take-off from the Order of Battle (OB) lists of the Gloria Arroyo and Noynoy Aquino regimes,” said Karapatan Secretary General Cristina E. Palabay.

She recalled that persons listed in the OB often ended up arrested based on false charges, incarcerated and even tortured, missing or killed. “Not only do such lists incite human rights violations, they also legitimize and make “normal” to the public the government’s abuse of power in suppressing dissent and decimating the supposed “enemies of the state,” she stated. Victoria Tauli Corpuz, UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples and former Chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, is among the named individuals in the petition. “This is a clear case of reprisal from Malacanang for Corpuz’s expressed concern over possible cases of human rights violations due to the imposition of martial law in Mindanao. She and another UN SR released a statement in response to a letter of allegation submitted by Karapatan to her office,” Palabay commented.

In the list also are human rights defenders who have been in the forefront of defending and protecting human and people’s rights like Elisa Tita Lubi, Karapatan National Executive Committee member and former interim Regional Coordinator of the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD).

Also named in the petition are Joan Carling, past Secretary General of the Asian Indigenous Peoples’ Pact (AIPP) and former member of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues; Atty. Jose Molintas, former member of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP); Beverly Longid, Global Coordinator of the International Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self-Determination and Liberation (IPMSDL); Sandugo Co-Chairperson Joanna Cariño; Cordillera People’s Alliance (CPA) Chairperson Windel Bolinget; and at least 10 Lumad datu/leaders in Northern and Southern Mindanao.

Even more unbelievable is the inclusion in the list of the names of the nine-member Karapatan quick reaction team arrested in November 2017 and HR defenders in Negros.

While National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) as an organization was omitted in the proscription, those involved in the peace talks between the GRP and NDFP were listed like Peace Panel members Coni Ledesma, Juliet de Lima and Benito Tiamzon; Chief Political Consultant Jose Maria Sison; Senior Adviser Luis Jalandoni; Wilma Austria-Tiamzon and at least 20 other peace consultants; and former Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo, independent cooperator.

The Karapatan leader also said that the list is “severely defective as it contains scores of aliases (aka), John and Jane Does so any person can be added later.”

“The list also contains seven names of paramilitary group members including four from the New Indigenous Peoples’ Army (NIPAR), led by Alde “Butchoy” Salusad, who have standing warrants for the killing of Lumad leader Datu Jimmy Liguyon.

They also have been presented and paid as surrenderees, consistent to their being all-purpose pawns in the military’s repressive schemes,” Palabay said. “On the whole, DOJ’s proscription petition is dubious and a maneuver meant to harass, target and criminalize persons in progressive organizations.

We should oppose this and other tyrannical acts that brand legitimate dissent and activism as ‘terrorism.’ What should be addressed instead is Duterte’s brand of state terrorism, which has victimized thousands. Indeed, shouldn’t Duterte be branded instead as the number 1 terrorist?” Palabay concluded.

Press Release | March 9, 2018
Reference: Cristina Palabay, Secretary General, 0917-3162831 Karapatan Public Information Desk, 0918-9790580