Commission on Status of Women & Arroyo in Philippines

This past Sunday, I attended a presentation given by the Chair of the Asian American Ministry of the United Methodist Church CA-NV Conference. She talked about the recent fact-finding mission to the Philippines in which she and the Conference's Bishop and other UMC representatives interviewed many survivors of the recent extra-judicial killings in Philippines.

The killings are real, the survivors are in hiding, and the struggle continues to gain support from the global communities. The raids, arrests, and assassination attempts target the leaders and members of groups that have openly opposed the government in one way or another -- thereby labeling them as terrorists or communists. In October 2006, the most outspoken, progressive leader of the movement for reform and human rights issues, Bishop Ramento of the Philippine Indepenedent Church, was assassinated. The unofficial word is that the military is responsible for the killiings because the military arm of the government was asked to support President Gloria Arroya by whatever means necessary against these enemies of the state. The people who have been targeted are known to have spoken against some of Arroyo's policies, thus they are blacklisted as terrorists. Things are much more complicated than this, I know, but the delegation that went to the Philippines will be presenting their case in full detail to the convention of the UMC CA-NV conference, when we will have more information about this fact-finding trip.

Hearing this, I was surprised to read on the website of the UN Commission on the Status of Women that in the fall of 2006, President Gloria Arroya was 45th on Forbes Magazine's 100 most powerful women -- above Queen Elizabeth and Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar. How is this possible? Why is this possible? The website makes note of this as a point of pride, as an example of the great strides we have made in bringing women equally into the war of politics and government. Yes, we've made great strides with empowering women such as Arroyo, who is so in love with her position of power that she will stoop to such dehumanizing tactics.

I am ashamed to say that I rejoiced when Arroyo was voted as President of the Philippines. I was naively under the impression that we as a global community had sufficiently progressed to a different sort of government that embraces gender equality and which willingly accepts the people's choices for powerful female leaders of a country.

Now, I am sorry to hear of these extra-judicial killings. I am even more sorry to hear (at the presentation) that the U.S. had given $4.6 billion to the Philippines to jumpstart its own war on terror. What kind of world are we coming to?