Imperatives for a Makakalikasan Manifesto on Women's Rights & Empowerment and Gender Equality3/30/2021
MAKAKALIKASAN (Nature Party Philippines) reiterates the importance of women empowerment and gender equality for its own merit and because protected & empowered women and LGBTQ+ individuals and a stronger community with no discrimination and no Gender-Based Violence (GBV) or other forms of violence, for the matter, do improve environmental protection, rehabilitation and conservation and can lead to a more just and sustainable society.
While not always recognized, women play a crucial part in ensuring that fragile ecosystems are protected, families are able to survive natural disasters, and natural resources are managed in a fair, efficient and sustainable way. Although women have proven their skills in managing natural resources and adapting to climate change, their contributions are often taken for granted or not valued.
Equality across gender also allow for full participation of everyone in the crucial role of actions for the environment. As we remind ourselves of women empowerment in this day, we likewise remind ourselves on the equally important tasks of gender equality.
On the other hand, as we suffer more and more to the ill effects of climate change, among the most affected are women, as they gather water, fish, or farm land affected by flooding. During pregnancy and motherhood, their health is more at risk. Meanwhile, their voices are often the last to be heard in environmental planning and management. They also have less access to land and productive resources. Challenges to women empowerment and equality among men and women continues to be wide. In the Asian and Pacific Island regions, 58% of women involved in the economy are found in the agriculture sector. In the Philippines, this is only 23% but represents 2nd highest industry group next to retail trade where women are involved (NSO LFS. 2008). This involves work in own-account farms, labor in small enterprises for processing fruits, vegetables and fish, paid and unpaid work on other peoples land, and collecting forest products. Out of all the women working in this sector, 10–20% across Asia & the Pacific have been found to have no tenure to the land they work on. Reasons for this number include economic and legal barriers. For example, in terms of loans women are found to get fewer and less loans to acquire land than men. For the Philippines, the rate is only slightly higher at 36.8% (NSO, 2002 Census of Agriculture and Fisheries) but still low. One other factor that plays into women's land rights for agriculture is the cultural norms of the area. In the Asian and the Pacific; including in the Philippines, rural areas women's societal rolls have been defined by patriarchal norms of the larger global society, where men are viewed as breadwinners and women are viewed as caretakers. This can be expressed through the number of hours women spend doing unpaid care work per day. In developing countries in total, women spend 4 hours and 30 minutes of care work a day versus the 1 hour and 2 minutes that men spend. So the work continue and everyone must contribute. We are also challenge with a high teenage pregnancy rate in the Philippines that often discriminates against the teen women who get pregnant an creates a social stigma, not fully making the fathers equally responsible for the responsibility of bringing up the child. Also, many young people today are exposed to a lot of peer pressure to expose themselves as sexual objects in social media. This only strengthen a sexist culture that often leads to discrimination and gender-based violence. Furthermore, gender based violence have since increase since we had the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and quarantines. There have been cases of abused women, children having been forced to stay more at home with their abusers. The situation of LGBTQ+ individuals during this pandemic is not so known but scant reports have shown that there seemed to be an increase in the GBV directed against them as well. Furthermore; in general, we have a serious lack of relevant data on the real situation of the access to and the quality & sufficiency of reproductive rights information and services to ascertain the real situation and how to start really solving this major problem. While there are some data on gender based violence, especially on VAWC (violence against women an children), there is very little information on the GBV situation of LGBTQs. Furthermore, based on many observation by advocates, researchers and policy makers monitoring the data on GBV, discrimination and reproductive rights information & services seemed all to be underreported due to various reasons, including the pervading view in some communities that these issues are private that only concerns the immediate family. All of these are cause by the remnants of a culture of patriarchy and is part of the anthropocentric worldview that created the "normal" that has caused our existential problem today. What we must endeavor is to move from this anthropocentric view to a more eco-centric view. This is central to the DEEP COMMUNITARIAN ECOLOGISM (Pagbubuo’hagi ng Makakalikasang Pamayanang Maharlikano) as the ideology of the MAKAKALIKASAN.
In as much as in the Anthropocentric mindset and values, human being discriminate against other living beings as reflected in the way we exploit them without regard for their inherent rights as sentient we share this planet with. This is the same form of discrimination that accord the living ecosystems and habitats as we disregard the fact that the planet itself is a complex living being and ecosystems and habitats that constitute it and nature as a whole has intrinsic rights ( environmental rights and rights of nature).
Within humanity; we painfully discriminate, that often leads to abuse, neglect and outright violence, across gender. With men imposing upon women and with cisgendered people discriminating against those who do not subscribe to their binary view of gender or against those in the LGBTQ+ community. Gender based violence (GBV) is a serious issue in human societies. In the Philippines, the Philippine Commission on Women monitoring violence against women (VAW) as part of this GBV noted that: (VAW) appears as one of the country’s pervasive social problems. According to the 2017 National Demographic and Health Survey conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority, one in four Filipino women age 15-49 has experienced physical, emotional or sexual violence by their husband or partner. It is indeed alarming that despite efforts to address the concern, VAW persists. The situation of discrimination and gender-based violence affecting the LGBTQ+ community is difficult to ascertain in the Philippines due to lack of public monitoring of the state and due to the absence of official statistics on these issues. As MAKAKALIKASAN subscribe to Social Justice as one of its UNIFYING PRINCIPLES and in pursuit of our 15-point GREEN AGENDA, we commit to ensure across all of these actions the full protection, promotion and respect towards providing the varying needs of the most vulnerable peoples and sectors in our society that requires equitable redistribution of wealth & opportunities. These includes the Indigenous, Bangsamoro & Cordillera peoples, marginalized peasants, homeless urban poor, the women, children, senior citizens & single parents in difficult circumstances & situations, persons with disability, persons deprive of liberty and victims of gender based violence. As such, MAKAKALIKASAN should stand for WOMEN EMPOWERMENT and GENDER EQUALITY and adopt a clear MANIFESTO that will guide its work and organization to ensure that this happens within the Party and will manifest itself in the political and governance work of the Party. To this end, the MAKAKALIKASAN (Nature Party Philippines) shall: 1) Ensure equal representation of men, women and LGBTQ+ in the decision-making body across the Party, creating appropriate caucuses for the purpose of focusing on their issues and galvanizing support from within the party and across the party and other groups. THEREFORE, we are setting up the MAKAKALIKASAN WOMEN'S RIGHTS & EMPOWERMENT AND GENDER EQUALITY CAUCUS as a start. Those interested to be part of this caucus can join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/makakalikasan.women.gender.caucus The caucus will now be headed by 3 women party leaders from Morong-Bataan, Batangas City and Makati City. Grace Roska Shimomura, an ecowaste advocate and a fulltime homemaker and mother ,Vaberlie Mandane-Garcia, an Associate Professor at the Batangas State University and Geraldine Ged Perez a public school teacher with the DepEd Bataan. The convenorship of this caucus will be broaden with more members recruited from within and outside the Party 2) Incorporate a gender-lens in all our on-the ground projects and policy-advocacy and electoral-governance program. For on-the-ground conservation projects, we will endeavor to incorporate always in every project a livelihood components. THEREFORE, MAKAKALIKASAN projects teams and local chapters working or will be working on the following current on-the ground work are directed to strengthen and highlight or incorporate this: a) Morong Bataan Community Reforestation Project, b) Tanay Reforestation Project in the Ancestral Domain of the Dumagat Remontado Indigenous Peoples, c) Ternate Marine Park Mangrove Reforestation and Marine Plastic Management Project, d) Pasic City Urban Gardening Project. We will also explore a similar project in Batangas City. Other future projects of the MAKAKALIKASAN will likewise have to do this. 3) For the policy-advocacy campaign, the Women's Rights & Empowerment and Gender Equality Caucus shall work with the Policy Advocacy Research Committee of the Party in incorporating a segment in the planned series of season 2 of the GET TO KNOW YOUR NATURE PARTY weekly broadcast that will now be transformed into a regular policy forum starting May. This segment shall focus on various Women's Rights & Empowerment and Gender Equality issues but will prioritize the topics of: Gender Based Violence and Access to Reproductive Rights information & services. 4) To advocate against the stigma of teenage mothers and to contribute in proper reproductive rights education for both male and female, especially among young people, the Women's Rights & Empowerment and Gender Equality Caucus shall work with the Party youth wing, the KABATAANG MAKAKALIKASAN to develop a more meaningful gamification use of social media (in participating in conservation activities for example) to sway them away from sexual objectification. 5) Finally, the MAKAKALIKASAN, through the Caucus and the National Council shall develop a program that will lead to the Party and its local chapters to be actively involve in contributing to the monitoring and quick response of GBV, particularly VAWC happening at the home, especially now during the pandemic. All of these plans and policy position will be presented to the upcoming series of REGIONAL and NATIONAL ASSEMBLIES of the party for wide discussion and consensus building leading to long term and sustained ACTIONS.
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These are public statements of the Nature Party PH (MAKAKALIKASAN) ARCHIVES
April 2023
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