Run Like a Girl

In the early 1990s, seventeen-year-old Nancy Navalta burst into Philippine track and field, running the 100 meter dash at 11.44 seconds. It’s an even more amazing feat considering how green she was. Nancy had no training. She just ran on sandy beaches with a sack of rocks slung over her shoulders. Newspapers lauded this daughter [...]

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Bodily Autonomy

In the spirit of picking your battles, I really tried to ignore the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines’ threat to deny communion and to campaign against Filipino politicians supporting reproductive health bills. But I’m still ticked off about it, and Karnythia’s post on bodily autonomy and Renee’s musings on patriarchal control over women’s fertility [...]

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Hunger

Over the past three months, have you “experienced hunger and did not have anything to eat?” This was a question from the Social Weather Stations, a non-profit social research station in the Philippines. Their findings show that more Filipino families are going hungry more often. More Filipino families are answering the above question with “a [...]

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Filipina caretaker case reconsidered

Juana Tejada, the Filipina caregiver who was being deported this August from Canada due to her cancer, has been granted an extension on her temporary work permit. She can stay until December 10, as the authorities continue to assess her case. Ms. Tejada began working in Canada in 2003, via the Canada’s Live-In Caregiver program. [...]

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What is to be done?

The appalling work conditions at the Cavite Export Processing Zone are, unfortunately, not unique to the Philippines. These also happen in Mauritius. In Kenya. In Morocco. Sri Lanka. Thailand. Honduras. Colombia. Bangladesh. But even faced with brutal labor repression, labor activists continue to work for unionization and workers’ rights. And activists in North America and [...]

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Who are you fighting for?

Latoya at Racialicious challenges us to remember who we are fighting for. Here’s my roundabout answer. Following is a list of informal requirements to obtain a job as a factory worker at the Cavite Export Processing Zone in the Philippines: female 18 to 24 years old high school graduate, some college preferred good English skills [...]

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The Women’s Desk

Back in my student activist days in the Philippines, I’d occasionally cut classes to march with anti-imperialist coalitions. One particular coalition tried to ensure representation by designating a workers’ desk, a peasants’ desk, the migrants’ desk, and so on. To represent kababaihan, women, the organization also created a “women’s desk.” Choosing representatives for workers, peasants, [...]

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Human Trafficking

We have an image of human traffickers and slavers as a sleazy bunch operating in “uncivilized” regions of the world. But traffickers can also look like former ambassadors who live in swanky townhomes in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. This report details the story of Lauro Liboon Baja Jr., who along with his wife and daughter, [...]

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Child Soldiers

About a month ago, the Philippines petitioned to be removed from the UN’s watchlist of countries with child soldiers. Philippine Ambassador to the UN Hilario Davide argued that it “non-state actors” like the Abu Sayyaf that deploy child soldiers. In contrast, Davide insisted that the Philippine government has an “extreme sensitivity” to the needs of [...]

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Same Old Potholes

After a short rainfall or two, the road that led to my partner M’s hometown just outside Manila would turn into a long stretch of potholes. Then a campaign and much fanfare, and the potholes would be “fixed” by the contractor who offered the biggest bribe. Whatever watered-down crap they used as filling would barely [...]

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