HERSTORY - The Filipinas and their struggle as women, as part of the oppressed classes and as part of a nation asserting sovereignty

I- The Pre-Colonial Islands

Dispersed barangays of 100-500 people were mostly engaged in subsistence cultivation.  There was a three-level system with a Datu, the Maharlika and the slaves.  No unifying empire existed unlike elsewhere in the Malay world.  Trading was extensive.  The people had a script called the alibata.

Women in the archipelago enjoyed a relatively freer environment for sexual expression before the coming of the colonizers.  They were free to choose whom to marry and ending marriages was allowed.  Virginity was not valued, instead, the capacity to reproduce was.  In the words of a friar, “the women of the islands were immoral, frolicking naked in the waters.”

The women led rituals as “babaylanes” (priestesses), and therefore, had power in the community.  They were believed to be the conduit of the people to Bathala -- a gender-neutral term for the Supreme Being.  The babaylan healed the sick, concocted medicines from herbs and was the wise one.

Community ownership of property was dominant.  Women enjoyed considerable greater economic independence and could administer assets without their husbands’ consent.  A legendary Queen Maniwantiwan of Panay had to be consulted by her husband, Datu Marikudo, when the king of Borneo, Datu Puti, wanted to purchase the island in 1250AD.  She was a co-ruler and she refused and brought many conditions before a purchase could be made.

Women’s opportunities to lead politically are somehow limited to inheritance of position, in case of incapacity/inavailability of male members.  Prinsesa Urduja of the island of Tawalisi (1350 AD) was reputed to be very wise, and could speak the languages of those with whom the island traded—Arabic, Chinese, and others.  She was quoted as saying that she will marry no one but him who defeats her in a duel.  Other warriors avoided fighting her for fear of being disgraced.  


II-The Spanish Era

The Spanish colonialists came to subjugate us using the sword and the cross.

They took away our lands, imposed unreasonable taxes and forced us to work as serfs in lands that we once owned.

The conquerors imposed their religion on us.  They made us believe that our spiritual practices were evil.  They hunted our shamans who were known as babaylanes, many of them women.  Those who resisted the colonialists were killed.

The rest were forced to dress in yellow, marking them as witches to be feared.

The Spanish friars enjoyed great political power.  They forced our women to submit to their whims and sexual demands.

They inculcated in us the role of wife and servant at the disposal of the male masters in the house and in the church.  Parish culture constricted the lives of women to giving birth, taking care of families, and praying for the atonement of sins.

The Spanish friars taught us that a woman’s body is full of sin, and that expressing physical desires is immoral.

The people did not succumb to the colonizers.  Over a hundred revolts challenged the three centuries of Spanish rule until the Philippine Revolution in 1896.  Women joined the resistance.

We passed on secret messages to support and begin the revolution.

We took care of the wounded.

We took up arms and fought the colonialists.

We won our battles.

Women heroes, many of them unknown, helped in the struggle to gain our freedom.

We remember --

Teresa Magbanua of Panay who was a sharpshooter and a brilliant military strategist,

Agueda Kahabagan of Laguna who was the first woman general recognized by the Republic, the Joan of Arc of Southern Tagalog,

Gregoria de Jesus, the wife of Andres Bonifacio, who fought together with her husband and played a vital role in securing important documents of the revolution.

Then there were the women of Malolos who fought for equal rights to education.

They were but a handful of women representing thousands of unsung women heroes in the Spanish colonial era who have learned that women’s place is also in the struggle to fight for sovereignty and independence.


III- The American Colonial Rule

The Filipino women joined the revolt against Spain and the resistance against the new American colonizers.  Prominent among them was Melchora Aquino, known as Tandang Sora, who sheltered and fed the revolutionaries called Katipuneros and refused to accept American colonial rule.  She was exiled by the United States to Guam.

American teachers arrived in the country and implemented a public education program that molded Filipinos into the American image in terms of values, culture and politics.  A number of Filipino women were sent to the U.S. for further education and were called “pensionadas”.  Upon their return, the pensionadas established the first colleges for women: Rosa Alvero College, Instituto de Mujeres, Centro Escolar, to name a few.

One of the pensionadas, Prinsesa Tarhata Kiram, returned to her people, filed her teeth as affirmation of her faith as a Muslim, and led other Moro people in resisting the American colonizers.  Many were massacred in the mountains of Bud Dajo and Bud Bagsak in Sulu.

Filipino women began to enter the professions and take interest in public life.  They started the campaign for women’s suffrage.  The right to vote was won in 1937 even ahead of the United States and most countries in Europe.  The dream of independence took a life of its own and continued to fire their souls.

III-The Japanese Occupation

As Japan had already been at war in Manchuria since 1931 and in China since 1937, Filipinos already knew that Japan will be attacking the Philippines, then an American colony.

But we never knew it will happen that fast.  Planes came roaring on December 8, 1941 before noon and on the same day, the American planes in Clark were entirely destroyed.  Japan bled the Asian Naval Fleet of the US based in Sangley and forced it to sail to Java.  More Japanese troops arrived, occupied Manila and the rest of the country.  

Women and old men had to bow to Japanese sentry, children had to learn Japanese language. While young men but old enough to fight were interrogated, tortured or killed.  

Women as young as thirteen were taken away from their parents, brought to garrisons to cook, clean and wash for soldiers during the day, to be raped at night as 10-20 soldiers.

Mothers cried, worrying for their sons in the battlefield or mourning for their sons and husbands killed by the occupying forces.  Young women and girls trembled in fear.

But slowly, women learned to fight back, to defend.  They joined the resistance, mainly, the HUKBALAHAP, to avoid getting abducted, getting tortured and raped or to avenge the death of their relatives. They were couriers, secret informants, paramedics, educators of the resistance.   

And some fought side by side with the men.

We had Felipa Culala, better known as Dayang-dayang who led a band of townmates to ambush Japanese soldiers in Candaba even before they established the People’s anti-Japanese Army.  We had Consolacion Chiva, the brave leader Waling-waling of the HUKBALAHAP in the Iloilo-Capiz-Antique area.   We had Remedios Gomez or Liwayway and Simeona Punzalan alias Guerrero who led squadrons in Pampanga.  

We had many more in Nueva Ecija, Zambales, Tarlac, Laguna, and in Quezon who worked for the liberation of our people and for peace to reign in our land.

IV- Post Japanese Occupation-Present

In today’s world, sexual explitation and migration are the face of women’s sad reality.  Resistance by survivoors, empowering themselves after having been victimized by perpetrators of oppression in now in focus.

Broad social movements arise.  Integration of work among women in these social movements in necessary and visible.

The faces of these women (in the struggle) are:

1.  Liza Balando, a farmer from Samar who came to Manila to work.  She beacme a union activist at Bossini’s Knitwear and joined many demonstrations.  During the May Day rally in 1972, in front of Congress, she, among others, was shot by men in a helicopter flying overhead.

2.  Lorena Barros, student leader, one of those who staged a protest during commencement exercises in 1970 in UP.  Being an intellectual, Barros devoured books on nationalism and democracy.  And with the help of colleagues, she was drawn into the fight for freedom.  She became the rallying figure of the women’s liberation movement during those times.  As she defined the new role of Filipinas in society, many looked up to her and followed (in her footsteps).

In 1971, Barros founded Makibaka, a militant women’s organization that figured prominently in feminist protest actions before Martial law.

3.  Raquel Edralin Tiglao. She was one of the women who openly and passionately opposed violence against women.  She is the founder of the Women’s Crisis Center, the first crisis center in the country for women victims of violence.

But Filipinas are continuously making heir way in history, pursuing gender equality and raising the banner of women in their role in society.  They are now in front of you.  We have the APL-Women, Bagong Kamalayan, Batis Aware, Buklod, Coalition Against Trafficking of Women - Asia Pacific, KAISA KA, PKKK, SARILAYA, Woman Health, and many others…

Women today will continue marching to register our collective voice in unity with other movements!