Alma Bulawan, President of Buklod-Olongapo, a survivors’ group in the Philippines, has been awarded yesterday by Soroptimist International as one of its 12 Unsung Women Heroes Awardees.

Bulawan is a survivor who changed her life and now helps women in prostitution in the Olongapo-Subic area change theirs. Alma advocates for a different future for these women through education, social and livelihood alternatives that do not lock them in lives of sexual and economic exploitation.

Another awardee is a staff of another CATW-AP member organization, DAWN. Her name is Mary Joy E. Barcelona: a survivor of sexual trafficking who was hounded by the “Japayuki” stigma. Learning of her rights as a woman, Mary Joy endeavored to get a college education; now, she coordinates an Alternative Livelihood Program and helps women with similar experiences, inspiring them to be triumphant survivors of life.

Related news : Extraordinary achievements of ordinary women honored

With two female presidents in the past two decades, the Philippines seems to have granted women respect and equal footing with men in politics. But on the Internet, type in the word “Filipina”, meaning Filipino women, in search engines more than often yields something less respectful.

On either Google or Yahoo search engine, the top 10 search results under “Filipina” are dominated by fishy dating sites promoting “sexy” Filipino women as ideal girlfriends, wives or partners.

Photos of Filipina beauties abound on these sites, enticing mostly foreign visitors to become a member. With the monthly cost of around 30 US dollars, the members can have the direct contact numbers of the ladies.

The word “Filipina” is so popular among the Internet populace that it even has a special spot in those nasty porn websites.

If a similar search is done using key words like “Indian”, ” Malaysian”, “Russian” or more Latin-sounding “Italiana” and ” Mexicana”, there is no reference to women of these nationalities or even women-related entries in the first 10 results.

It was precisely this that prompted Noemi Dado, 51, a professional blogger and new media publisher, to start blogging about the need to re-shape and re-define the “sexy” Filipina image.

Last June, Dado and her friends founded the Filipina Images blog portal www.filipinaimages.com to write about the positive and inspiring entries about Philippine women and encourage all other bloggers in cyberspace to do the same.

By simply including “Filipina” somewhere in the title of their positive entries, these women warriors hope to reshape the Philippine woman’s image by capitalizing on their wholesomeness aspect of the same word used to malign it.

“Dignity is every person’s human right,” Dado said. “We seek to balance the Filipina images that are available online. We share our reflections about what the Filipina of the future could be like, too.”

Dado said whether the Filipina is a mother, a nanny, a decision maker in the corporate arena, a domestic service professional, or a mail order bride, they have the right to empower themselves through education, and to gain equal rights in the household and the workplace.

But Dado’s crusade meets challenges from inside the very group it intends to help.

Considered shy, modest and loyal in general, while maintaining the traditional virtue of a woman to run all family chores, Filipino women are a natural attraction to some Westerners, not to mention the notable high English literacy here compared with other Asian countries.

And it is also regarded as a pro for Filipinas, especially in provinces, if they are able to marry outside and help lift the family out of poverty with greenbacks of their husbands or boyfriends.

Dado said she got anonymous feedbacks posted on the Filipina Images blog that reads “There is no such thing as this campaign would shape the Filipina images. WE ARE ALREADY KNOWN TO BE THE GOLD DIGGER” of this era. There is no way you can stop our fellow Filipinas to go online and search for their financial fortune or even a soul mate.”

The anonymous post said Dado should not crush the sites “that are helping most of our fellow Filipinas to look for their greener pasture by getting online.”

Jean Enriquez, Executive Director of the network of global feminist groups, The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women — Asia (CATW), said that this is a view point such as this is another manifestation of colonial mentality where these dating sites represent hope.

“I wouldn’t blame the women (who may have voluntarily put themselves on the website), but it is a situation of hopelessness, where there is no other way out of poverty except through marriage to a foreigner,” Enriquez said.

Emmi de Jesus, Secretary General of Gabriela National Alliance of Women in the Philippines, another non-governmental group advocating women’s rights, said the activities can go beyond ‘ dating’ and may be just another way of earn money, especially in the middle of a financial crisis when people are losing their jobs and become more desperate.

Facing these challenges, it may be a long time still before the on-line image of the Filipina is shaped, but Dado and her co- founders of Filipina Images, remain hopeful and are encouraged by the little things that show that they are starting to make a dent in cyberspace.

“One of our successes is that when you Google the word ‘ Filipina’, you will find us in the first five pages of the search engine results,” Dado said.

Dado’s group is also joining hands with wikipilipinas.org, a special portal called the Encyclopedia of Philippine Women, which compiled the achievements and triumphs of Filipinas worldwide.

By having an online platform to showcase Filipina intelligence and talent, the goal of developing more empowered Filipinas at least becomes achievable, Dado said.

- Philstar

PHILIPPINES — With drums and bugles, about 90 activists under the Free Burma Coalition-Philippines today held a rally in front of the Thai Royal Embassy in Makati City in time for the 14th Asean Summit.

Organizations present during the rally were: Alliance of Progressive Labour (APL), Sanlakas, Partido ng Manggagawa (PM), Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP), Coalition Against Trafficking in Women-Asia Pacific (CATW-AP), KPML, Bagong Kamalayan, ZOTO and the Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID).

Activists urged ASEAN member states to put on the summit’s agenda the human rights issue in Burma saying that the summit should serve as a “hot seat” for the Myanmar delegate.

“The military regime of Burma has a lot to answer. Its human rights record is not showing any degree of significant improvement and the ASEAN Summit ministers and delegates should not take a blind eye into this issue,“ Rasti Delizo FBC-Phils Convenor said during the rally.

AS IMPORTANT AS THE ISSUE OF FINANCIAL CRISIS

The group said ASEAN should come up with mechanism to “monitor human rights record” of Burma as the country’s ruling regime remain secretive and intransigent to the international clamor for political reforms in the said territory.

Delizo stressed, “The issue of continued human rights violations in Burma is as important as the issue of global financial meltdown. In the face of this financial crisis, you have here one member in the ASEAN that treats Burma’s coffers as its personal purse. The peoples of Burma are suffering politically and economically because their government doesn’t care even if millions will die in extreme hunger.”

ASEAN slogan brags about achieving a caring and sharing ASEAN community and one of the ASEAN Charter’s key pledges is to set up a regional human rights body.
“If this is true,” Delizo continued, “we challenge the ASEAN to begin monitoring the human rights situation in Burma; schedule a visit to Burma’s labour camps, detention centers, and try to see and feel the atmosphere of dictatorship there. Right now, ASEAN should go beyond its usual rhetoric and act concretely.”

RELEASE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!

From the Thai Royal Embassy, the group proceeded to the Burma Embassy. With a replica of a “prison cell” with “prisoners” tied in shackles, the group dramatized the plight of political prisoners in Burma.

Unimpressed over the release of prisoners in Burma last week, FBC-Phils dubbed the move as an “old trick” by the military regime to deodorize the awful smell of its dismal human rights record.”

The group said that all political prisoners including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi must be released unconditionally.

“Torture, rape and murder are normal occurrences inside Burmese prisons. The junta cannot hide the fact that political prisoners suffer torture day and night and their families are even prohibited from visiting them. The entire country is like a huge garrison—there is no rule of law,” FBC-Phils explained.

Recently, prominent leaders of the popular Saffron revolution including their lawyers were sentenced by the military court to serve 65 years in prison.

“Burma is a dangerous place not just for activists but also for lawyers. Protection and promotion of human rights which is a very basic duty of the state is not happening. It is in this case that the international community has the obligation to act,” Delizo concluded.

- Free Burma Coalition-Philippines