Women take to streets to oppose Cha-cha

Face mask-clad pedestrians cross a road in Manila on September 12, 2022.
AFP / Ted Aljibe

MANILA, Philippines — To commemorate International Women’s Day tomorrow, women from various organizations will be marching in the streets and expressing their opposition to Charter change.

Seventeen major women’s organizations and formations have banded together to ask the Marcos administration to prioritize programs addressing their women’s agenda, instead of pushing for Charter change.

Members of the 17 groups are also set to hold dance protests with a unified theme of “Iindak ang Agenda ng Kababaihan, hindi ang Cha-Cha ng Iilan!”

At a press conference yesterday, leaders of women’s organizations bared the grim state of Filipino women and how the proposed amendments to the Constitution will exponentially worsen the conditions they face.

They warned against a rise in gender-based violence once the amended Charter allows sale of Philippine lands and key public infrastructures to foreign nationals.

“Women stand to gain nothing from Cha-Cha but further destitution, undignified living and working conditions, and violence and repression,” they pointed out.

The group also slammed Cha-cha for offering the motherland “on a silver platter” to corporate climate criminals and capitulating to the interests of global warmongering superpowers.

The interests of Filipino women, they said, should be prioritized rather than the interests of the few ruling elites who will benefit from Cha-cha.

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