women activists in the philippines

MANILA, Philippines (LNS) Tens of thousands of Filipino people poured into the streets to participate in protest demonstrations during the period of the April 7 legislative elections staged by president Ferdinand Marcos. World-wide attention began to focus on the mass protest movement that has been growing in the Philippines during the more than five years of martial law,

Fierce government repression has left people constantly subject to arrest and has forced many underground. Two women active in the underground movement in the capital city of Manila discussed with LNS the current stage of their work, its past, and where it is headed.

Gina, 20, and Nadina, 21, worked during the election to support LABAN, the opposition coalition joined by the underground and supported by the masses of Filippinos. LABAN is the acronym for Lakas ng Bayan, or "Power of the People." LABAN consists of a broad coalition of labor, student, church and political groups, including sympathizers of the communist-led New People's Army, now waging a Guerilla struggle in a number of provinces.

The NPA adapted guerrilla strategy to the geog. raphy of the Philippines when it decided to build not one, but many base areas throughout the island chain. Before '68 the old party leadership held that a guerrilla war in the Philippines would be impossible because its base could easily be surrounded. But the NPA now has 20 stable guerrilla zones supported by the local population, and the government has been unable to concentrate against any one of them effectively.

Activists had to devise new organizing tactics after Marcos imposed martial law in September, 1972. Since then, the rights to assemble, to organize, and to strike have been outlowed, and 60,000 people arrested. Yet in the past three years there has been a five-fold increase in the forces of the underground. LABAN candidates for the legislative assembly were oll defeated by the KBL, Marcos' party. Everyone expected a fraudulent election, yet the extent to which Marcos had to go, even according to western reporters, may have undercut his intentions in holding an election in the first place: to provide a measure of legitimacy for his martial law and to improve his image internationolly.

Though LABAN lost the seats in the legislative body, which they never expected to win, the election period clearly reflected the breadth and depth of their movement.

"This is the first time," Nadina said to LNS, describing the election period, "that we really saw a mass movement. There were rallies, not just for LABAN, but for bringing down the dictatorship.

"We started out very cautious. Maybe 5-7,000 people would come to a rally, and in the end we had tens of thousands coming. Before we involved students and workers, but now we've even been able to reach the petty and national bourgeoisie. They're now saying things the students were saying six or seven years ago, before martial law.'

Gina added: "Sometimes we don't say we're LABAN, we just ask people what they think, and pretty soon they're telling us 'Marcos does this because he wants to aid the foreign capitalists, so the prices are going up,' and so forth. The things we told them before!"

In the past years, the resistance has boycotted the "referenda" staged by Marcos. The decision to participate in the legislative elections stirred up some debate, even though LABAN announced it would run a campaign on "the people's terms, not the regime's.

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As Nadina explained, "Even now some activists don't want to participate. They say, 'If we believe it's a farce, why participate in elections?"

"We believe in armed struggle, but here is a chance to build up the mass movement and the antifascist struggle. The result is something really concrete: never before have we been able to reach so many people. In the past, people could not iden-

tify, they needed a concrete symbol. Now for the first time they can identify."

"It has been a success, noted Gina. "We were able to set up the KMK (the People's Movement for Freedom) in the factories, schools, even high schools in areas we had never been before. We saw real fighting enthusiasm.

The two women reflected on the five and a half year period since martial law, the growth of their movement, and their own role in it as women: "Before martial law," explained Nadina, "there was a large democratic women's organization, but all these organizations were illegalized. Now many women are active. In some groups they might be mostly women and the leader a man. Men are more trained and skilled in thinking. They are more critical, systematic and materialist because this is the way society trains them. Women are given dolls and claypots and told to play house, only imitate your mother, whereas men are given jigsaw puzzles and things that develop your thinking.

"So it's a radical change the movement asks of you, to become systematic and materialist. In society you can be as absent-minded as you want, it's expected, 'because you're a woman.' Even the women cadres have to adjust when they find they're the most advanced element. They might not feel too easy about it,

No hay liberación de la mujer sin revolución

revolución

No hay sin liberacion de la mujer

'There is no women's liberation without revolution; there is no revolution without women's liberation.'

"Even in relationships there is a tendency to think if a woman is almost equal, students think she is too tomboyish, too aggressive, more domineering. They couldn't get used to the idea she is a woman, just thinks the same. We have iron discipline in relationships. For example, people might be in a place together and would all just lie down on the floor to sleep. But we have a very strict policy and even cadres are disciplined for 'sexual opportunism,' both male and female and mass worker. So it's very different from what you expect from the propa. ganda."

"The old communist party was different," Gina noted. "We talked to a woman who worked for them when they had meetings at her house. They would tell the women to cook for the party boss and the others, treat them to a fiesta, like royalty. All the women had to do was hold the papers, cook, never go out and organize or conduct seminars.

"They were very surprised when we helped. Now we have different roles, women have so much bigger roles. They were just supposed to dance. Now we

carry arms, unlike before. And it was the same with many rank-and-file men too. We talked to an old platoon leader. They never let nim do anything, not even how to read. But under the new party, they taught him how to read and have access to materials."

The women described the process through which students become politically active, as well as campaigns the two of them have participated in to organize students.

"A lot of students changed their minds about money," said Gina. During the election period. "first they would come to work a little. Then they started coming early and working late. then they started staying all night and sharing their money with the urban poor workers. It was hard for them to start going out and campaigning actively. The campaign was during examinations. It was hard with parents too, the first time you stay out without permission, but after a while they accepted it. Actually with the students we have already broken through. The problem now is to sustain the move. ment among them. We have to make it more systematic, raise understanding, show how this system cannot work.'

The future is "so much clearer now," say Nadina and Gina. Their movements describes itself as antifascist and anti-imperialist and aims to rid the Philippines not only of Marcos, but of the system he represents. "Our target is the last part of this decade and the first part of the next," said Nadina. "While it is true that people lag behind theoretically, in political education, in terms of commitment, people give up their jobs, families, school, career, they are willing to sacrifice."

For themselves, continued Nadina, "We will go wherever needed. There's always the countryside. We always have to think of the armed struggle as the primary form."'

"If it gets too hot you have to leave," added Gina. "Many learn about other regions, learn another dialect, in case you have to leave. The government can do anything they want to and we fully under. stand this can happen at any time. It may look different here because of the lights and the noise of the city, but we're still at war.

"On May first last year there was a long line and all of a sudden this red car drove up, the door flew open and they grabbed three people. We never saw them again."

"Simply walking home," Nadina described. "they could be following you for days, then grab you. It's a white area, after all. It's theirs.

"But it's only in Manila there's no armed struggle. Sometimes it's hard to remember the party was only reestablished in 1968, and it's already organized on national lines."

Zoo Story (continued from page 3)

better

even if a week or month passes, things will be clearer than a couple of years later.

That was my best support. Talk to people. Friends help you keep things in perspective. I even found a woman who had also applied at the Zoo and was told the exact thing I was told. That did a lot for my confidence in my memory. It also meant I might have a witness for court.

Lack of money for legal proceedings. Women's Law Fund is the place to go. A woman doesn't have to be broke to qualify for help here. The Fund exists to encourage women to bring discrimination cases to court, regardless of their financial status. They are very supportive people, too.

Fear of harassment on the job or job loss. Remem. ber a woman is protected by federal law against retaliation if she has filed a discrimination complaint. Also, I think that in some cases being "a big mouth" is an advantage -the company may go out of its way to avoid harassing you.

Ellen Leach