GMAÂ’S SONA Has No Human Face
ArroyoÂ’s SONA focused on economic and financial, and structural aspects of governance. It simply disregarded the socio-cultural elements of administration. Arroyo failed to realize human beings make up a country. She did not address this fact in her State of the Nation Address.
(PRWEB) August 1, 2005
“The SONA of Mrs. Arroyo pushed women beyond the margins,” says Marlea Muñez, Executive Director of WEDPRO, a women’s research and advocacy organization for women’s empowerment and social change.
Mrs. ArroyoÂ’s SONA focused on economic and financial, and structural aspects of governance. It simply disregarded the socio-cultural elements of administration. This country is not a laboratory composed of controlled specimens that can be remodeled according to designs of so called exact science. Mrs. Arroyo failed to realize that there are human beings in this country; there are Filipinos; there are women; and they are not pieces of equipment and definitely not specimens.
Time and again, the following issues have been raised to the government, but fell on deaf ears of Mrs. ArroyoÂ’s administration: feminization of poverty in the country; the reproductive health rights and sexual rights of women are being suppressed by limiting information dissemination and budget support; the rights of women migrant workers have not been actively protected; options to be free from violent relationships have not been supported; efforts to address discrimination against lesbians have been set aside; there have been lack of intensive retooling of agencies that are mandated to provide services to women; removal of death penalty has not been prioritized; the visiting forces continue to engage in military prostitution; women activists and womenÂ’s rights defenders are being threatened; economic activities of women are being unlawfully demolished; indigenous women have been alienated from their ancestral domains to give way to mining operations and large scale logging; roles of women in management of environment and natural resources have not been seriously taken up.
Muñez also raised the lack of due diligence on the part of GMA. Until now, GMA has not responded to the 2003 Concluding Observations of the UN Human Rights Committee. The Philippines has been urged to take measures to repeal all laws which have made it possible to impose the death penalty; to pursue its efforts to counter all forms of discrimination in particular to sexual orientation; to concretely address reported cases of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention, harassment, intimidation and abuse, including of detainees, many of whom are women and children, that have neither been investigated nor prosecuted; to look at the vaguely worded anti-vagrancy law which has been used to arrest persons without warrant, especially women in prostitution and street children. The UN Human Rights Committee has also expressed its concerned on the exceedingly broad scope of the proposed legislation on against terrorism which could have a negative impact on the rights guaranteed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
It was also mentioned by WEDPRO during the mass action on the SONA day on July 25, 2005, that as continuing analysis and organizing of women happen on the ground, any government to administer this country should sincerely address not only the basic needs of people, but work for well-being of women that is fulfilled, satisfying, and self-determined to include economic productivity, access to social services, education, political participation, mobility, health, desired fertility, freedom from all forms of violence, and attainment personal security.
Contact:
Marlea Munez
63 2 9264876
Wedpro1989@yahoo. com
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