On the occasion of International Women’s Day, Tanggol Bayi, an association of women human rights defenders, joins other women’s rights activists and advocates of women’s liberation in expressing solidarity for all women victims of political repression, especially victims of extrajudicial killing, involuntary disappearance, sexual violence, abduction, torture and unjust arrest and imprisonment.
We are likewise in solidarity with the tens of thousands of women living in communities under virtual martial rule and whose lives and livelihoods have been upended not only by food and economic blockades, but by the military’s bombardment and artillery attacks on their production areas; and the millions of women who have been red-tagged, threatened, harassed and intimidated for belonging to militant people’s and sectoral organizations, or for simply living in areas of armed conflict.
Karapatan has documented at least 21 women killed extrajudicially under the Marcos Jr. regime’s brutal counter-insurgency war. The victims range from 9-year-old Kyllene Casao who was killed by soldiers and paramilitaries under the 59th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army (IBPA); peasant activist Emelda Fausto, who was massacred with her husband and two minor children; hors de combat Kalixta Peralta and Hannah Jay Cesiste, as well as NDFP consultants Wilma Austria-Tiamzon and Concha Araneta-Bocala who were captured alive but killed in violation of international humanitarian law.
Four women — Elena Pampoza, Elgene Mungcal, Deah Lopez and Lyn Grace Martullinas — are among the 15 persons who have been forcibly disappeared under the Marcos Jr. regime. Pampoza, Mungcal and Lopez are peasant organizers while Martullinas is an aide of NDFP consultant Rogelio Posadas who is himself a victim of extrajudicial killing.
There are currently 157 women political prisoners unjustly incarcerated in various jails and prisons across the country. The eldest political prisoner is 80-year-old Rosita Taboy. Now on the second year of her detention, she suffers from diabetes and hypertension and has difficulty walking unaided. Tanggol Bayi urgently calls for the release of Taboy and other ailing and elderly women political prisoners on humanitarian grounds.
The Marcos Jr. regime has preferred to embark on PR extravaganzas like the drafting of a “national action plan (NAP) on women, peace and security” that turns a blind eye to the insidious violence of poverty afflicting the vast majority of Filipino women, rendering them vulnerable to brazen violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. Even as ordinary women and women activists continue to bear the brunt of State-sponsored violence and terrorism, the NAP proffers superficial solutions such as the token participation of women in so-called peace-building initiatives that are part and parcel of the regime’s counter-insurgency drive.
We in Tanggol Bayi condemn these cosmetic solutions that deliberately gloss over the deep-seated political and economic roots of social unrest and armed conflict and deny their inexorable link to State-sponsored violence against the people and women in particular.
We salute the militancy and courage of Filipino women for seeing though such deceptions and continuing to stand up against the repression and terrorism of the Marcos Jr. regime. We will not waver in our commitment to work in solidarity with Filipino women’s movements that genuinely promote and defend women’s and people’s rights.