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The celebration of International Women’s Day is said to have taken root in the protest action initiated by 15,000 women who marched through New York City in 1908 to demand shorter work hours, better pay and voting rights.
In that day and age when society regarded women in the context of the home and in roles subservient to men, the feminist march must have raised a lot of eyebrows. However, it was to be the warning shot to a disastrous accident that happened three years later wherein 140 women, mostly Italian and Jewish immigrants, died in the “Triangle Fire” that broke out in New York on March 25, 1911.
That the tragic incident happened in the middle of a city and in a country perceived to be a bastion of democracy and defender of civil rights was a painful wakeup call. The thousands of women who took to the streets three years earlier had been calling notice to exploitation at the workplace, but nobody cared to listen. A tragedy had to happen to push the problem in the center of everyone’s attention and eventually pressured the United States Congress to craft labor legislation.
The relevance of the incidents I mentioned above is being honored this month throughout the world through various activities, each one for various causes close to the hearts of women in different countries and culture.
I find it uncanny that Filipino women mark the observance of International Women’s Month as the ZTE-NBN deal controversy continues to intensify. Tomorrow, another witness is said to appear before the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee to tell what he knows about the $329-million deal. President Arroyo approved the National Broadband Network deal with ZTE Corp. early last year, only to cancel it five months later after criticisms about overprice and bribery broke out.
Everybody’s attention is riveted to the ZTE-NBN issue, including women religious who don’t usually add their voices to political issues. But the Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines (AMRSP) has come out to publicly criticize the government for its role in the broadband issue, in stark contrast to the local bishops, who opted to issue guidelines in the form of prayers and discernment.
The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) pastoral statement, titled “Seeking the Truth, Restoring Integrity,” condemned the “culture of corruption” and recommended steps to fight it but members of militant and civil society groups called it a “copout.”
I don’t know how many parishioners can relate with the bishops’ message but nuns in the provinces have certainly their own minds as to the raging issue of the day. For example, members of the Sisters Association of Mindanao (Samin) were among the 1,000 demonstrators that attended the Feb. 29 rally held in Davao City’s Rizal Park. Some 360 nuns from about 40 congregations in Mindanao called for Arroyo to resign. The web paper Union of Catholic Asian News reported that Sister Elsa Compuesto, Samin’s executive director, read a statement from the group at the rally. “We stand by our belief that President Arroyo has committed the grave sin of stealing her legitimacy from the people” and that “she has committed a serious immoral act in governance,” the Missionary Sisters of Mary nun said.
Here in Cebu City, except for SVD priest Fr. Max Abalos, the local clergy stayed away from a similar event at Fuente Osmeña. But a member of the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, Sr. Marie Teresita Bravo, told UCAN she joined the rally as an “act of conscience,” and not in “defiance” of Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, who asked people “to stay calm, pray and not join street protests.”
Asked whether the AMRSP’s position is in defiance of the CBCP stance, I heard a nun say on TV that their proactive stance has something to do with the Church’s “prophetic role” in society. Whatever it is, the ZTE-NBN issue has generated a lot of “religious power,” i.e., nuns joining public demonstrations in protest against corruption in the broadband deal.
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The celebration of 8th Women’s Congress in Cebu had high-profile philanthropist Mariquita S. Yeung as guest speaker. Ekit, as she is fondly called, is founding chair of the Mariquita S. Yeung Charitable Foundation, sponsor of the Operation Smile Cebu Mission.
In her speech before more than 700 women who attended the program in Cebu International Convention Center last Friday, Ekit recounted how the mission of smiles landed in her lap in 1998, and how her group grapples with many challenges each year just to extend free surgery to some 3,000 children afflicted with cleft lip and palate. That’s 3,000 children and families who find renewed hope after getting pro bono corrective facial surgery through Ekit’s foundation. In a hospital setting, the medical intervention is estimated to cost P30,000 per surgery.
Ten years after the first OS mission in Cebu, Ekit told the women audience about plans to extend corrective surgery to indigent patients not just on Operation Smile Mission dates but “year round.” Ms. Yeung didn’t promise to build a five-storey facility inside the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center but announced that the project is in its planning stage, together with the province of Cebu and Operation Smile International.
I had the opportunity of talking to Operation Smile International founder Bill Magee when he visited Cebu early last month. Mr. Magee told this corner he took up the project in a meeting with Governor Garcia. He said the governor said, “Ready when you are!” when he discussed the project with her.
