Intensifying exploitation and oppression of working women
On the occasion of International Working Women�s Day on March 8, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo boasted that "women power is alive". Proof of this, she said, was the ascension to power of another woman president and the appointment of more women officials in her administration compared to previous regimes.
Macapagal-Arroyo called on women to manifest their power, especially in the coming polls. She likewise promised to address the issues of discrimination and violence against women by passing more laws to protect them.
These are all tokenisms; they fail to address the basic demands of the women masses. The Macapagal-Arroyo government continues to implement policies that give rise to the impoverishment of the toiling masses, including millions of women workers and peasants.
In the countryside, continuing and widespread land-use conversion and the free dumping of agricultural products from other countries have further deprived the peasant masses of livelihood, forcing them to try their luck in urban areas. More and more of those who have been migrating to town centers and cities are young women peasants who are eventually sucked into the service sector or find themselves engaged in other informal jobs. But with even such jobs in short supply, many of them still end up unemployed.
Based on a study about the fate of peasant women and childen in Southern Tagalog after the reactionary government began widespread land-use conversion under the CALABARZON project, many of them have ended up in various occupations that offer menial pay and subject them to highly exploitative working conditions. They work as caddies in golf courses set up for tourists; as domestic helpers; or as waitresses or entertainers in restaurants, karaoke bars and beerhouses.
In the towns of Leon, Tubungan and Ingore in Iloilo, road-widening projects that favored "development projects" under imperialist "globalization" destroyed peasants� farms, crops and homes. To acquire new sources of income, women and young girls were forced to work as washerwomen, domestic helpers and salesladies in the town centers.
Some 50,000 potato farmers in Benguet suffered the same fate. When prices of locally grown potatoes dropped by almost 50% with the dumping machine-sliced, ready-to-fry potatoes from the US, women turned to traditional ways of augmenting income, such as raising animals and cultivating cash crops like garlic. With their efforts wasted the dumping of meat and garlic from other countries, however, they have been forced to engage in a variety occupations for a pittance.
In the cities, the imposition of forced overtime, high quotas, the piece rate system, multi-skilling others is rampant, more so in the export processing zones (EPZ) where the implementation of flexible policies is at its worst. Here, workers� labor power squeezed to the utmost for the capitalists� maximum profit. Labor flexibilization is a terrible blow to workers in EPZs, at least 75% of whom are women. Capitalists in the EPZs prefer women workers in the belief they are more docile and more easily intimidated dissuaded them from joining unions and fighting for their rights.
Thus, they suffer wage discrimination and forms of abuse. A study by the International Labor Organization has revealed that women workers the whole are paid only 47% of what male workers receive for performing the same job. Another survey of export processing zone workers conducted by Catholic church showed that sexual harassment was prevalent, but that women workers preferred to suffer in silence for fear of being thrown out of their jobs.
But even if they received equal pay, it would not be enough. In Metro Manila, the mandated minimum wage covers only 45% of a family�s basic needs. Worse, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has exempted garments and textile exporters and retail and service establishments exploying not more than 10 workers from paying the minimum wage. Women comprise the majority of workers in these factories and establishments.
Under the labor flexibilization scheme, sub-contracting and homework arrangements, especially by garments exporters, have also become common among women in the countryside. Instead of having an entire garment sewn inside a factory, capitalists contract thousands of women to sew different parts of the garment in their own homes, in exchange for measly wages. This way, capitalists are able to further depress wages, bust unions and evade labor standard laws.
Unemployment is an even bigger problem for women. Despite the fact that there are practically as many females as males in the labor force, women consistently suffer higher rates of unemployment. In 1998, doctored government statistics indicated that 9% of women were without jobs while 7% of men were unemployed. In reality, up to 50% of women aged 15 to 65 are jobless, including 13 million women who have been excluded from the labor force.
The unemployed troop not only to the towns and cities but overseas. Sixty percent (60%) of the close to seven million overseas Filipino workers are women, most of them domestic helpers and entertainers. They are forced to endure typically inhuman living and working conditions that render them vulnerable to various forms of physical, sexual and psychological abuse. In Japan, according to one study, there are about 40,000 documented Filipino dancers, but up to 150,000 Filipino women prostitutes. DOLE�s Overseas Workers� Welfare Administration estimates that there are at least 1,000 Filipino prostitutes in Korea aside from about 600 Filipino women engaged in prostitution around US military bases in that country. Other countries pinpointed as destinations of Filipino women who end up as prostitutes after being deceived by illegal recruiters are Malaysia, the Middle Eastern countries and even Italy, the Marianas and Nigeria.
These numbers continue to grow as the economic crisis worsens and the poor grasp at straws. In the first six months after the eruption of the Asian financial crisis in 1998, the number of Filipinos traveling to Japan rose by 21%. Most of them were women.
The commodification and enslavement of the toiling masses of women (who comprise 90% of Filipino women) continue to worsen. In the face of such exploitation and oppression, organized women have exhibited greater militancy. On March 8, thousands of women marched to Malaca�ang to demand a P125-increase in the minimum wage, which workers continue to be deprived of. The women also demanded punishment for Estrada, who implemented policies that impoverished the toiling masses.
They also demanded the release of political prisoners. There are 25 women and youth political prisoners who continue to de deprived of their freedom even under the Macapagal-Arroyo regime.
Because of their demands and the huge number of the toiling masses of women, the Party and the entire revolutionary movement must pay attention to, and redouble their efforts in, arousing, organizing and mobilizing the toiling masses of women as a powerful force in the national-democratic revolution.
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