FACSPS Project with Pilipina, Inc. in the Philippines

While Filipino women do not suffer from the more glaring practices of gender inequality in other countries like the dowry system, genital mutilation, wife burning, female infanticide, vaginal sewing, they are nevertheless subordinated and marginalized in areas of education and literacy, employment, health and personal safety, and governance. Socio-economic institutions that continue to reinforce sex-role stereotyping and images of women as sexual objects further perpetuate the inequality between men and women.

While some laws and policies that seek to correct these inadequacies have been instituted, much still remains to be done in terms of promulgation and enforcement particularly those criminalizing domestic violence and trafficking of women and children.

Pilipina, Inc., is a nonprofit, non-government, charitable mass-based organization in the Philippines that was founded in 1981. Since then, it has organized daycare projects, provided legal services and education to rape victims and battered women, pioneered studies in women’s role in the Philippines and pushed for greater participation of women in governance and leadership. In Cebu, Pilipina operates a crisis center for battered women and organized a community watch (Bantay-Banay) program to prevent cases of domestic violence against women.

The joint FACSPS- Pilipina, Inc project, started in 2001, is a proactive educational step to directly reach out to grassroots women. The outputs are an increased number of women leaders from the community and sector-based organizations who would take on the issues of gender, in addition to help solve those affecting their communities.

The joint project conducts orientation to women participants, and develop training modules on priority gender issues and concerns in ten local areas; mobilize the women leaders in undertaking concrete action to address identified gender issues and concerns; and to strengthen networking among women leaders of community and sector-based organizations. The project will aid, educate and help women leaders towards transformative leadership and citizenship and gender-responsive governance across various strata of society.

Orientation and grassroots training modules on priority gender issues and concerns, foremost domestic violence, gender-responsive governance, family planning and women’s reproductive health, are being developed and implemented in the ten project areas of Kalinga, Baguio/Benguet, National Capital Region, Bacolod/Negros Occidental, Cebu City, Cagayan de Oro, Bukidnon, Butuan/Agusan del Norte, Marawi, and Davao City. The participants plan and implement activities and courses of action in their respective communities to address the specific issues. Conferences in the national and regional levels of grassroots women leaders to share experiences and success stories and lessons learned are held.

Similar to our project with Loving Presence Foundation, progress reports are submitted on the joint project. Audited financial reports, conducted by external auditors, are submitted at the end of the calendar year. President Rufino Ignacio and wife Marlene visited the Philippines in August-September 2002 and participated in meetings and seminars conducted under the Pilipina-FACSPS project. They met with women of various persuasions -- leaders, battered victims, Muslim women, ethnic tribes, and others who are bound by a common plea to equal rights and opportunities.

Pilipina, Incorporated Rina Jimenez David is the Executive Director of the joint project. Rina, a writer of note in the Philippines and an icon in gender issues, is a feature writer of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Her daily writings on contemporary issues receive high praise from readers from the Philippines and abroad.