Special Report: Desperate Housewives

Dec. 17, 2005

Women and mothers are reeling from the impact of the new value-added tax (EVAT) law, and some have gone to extreme measures to make both ends meet. One of them is Miranda, who takes Last Two bets to support her family. She knows what she’s doing is wrong but according to her, she was willing to take the risk if only to put food on their table.

The Women’s Movement in Davao Through the Years

A boy who must have been around four years old clung tightly to the hand of a woman who was trying to keep herself and the child astride with the moving throng. She was in her 50s and had the look of someone who should be at home, tending to her chores. But no — Juana Aredondoa had been meaning to join the march that day. After all, she had done that in the ’70s, when she was much, much younger.

Siyuan and the Struggles of Her Tribe

Siyuan Tundag, an Ata-Manobo, has seen the worst as her people struggled to keep capitalist intruders out of their ancestral land. But she remains a steadfast Lumad, a fortress of her own. She is also the voice of her tribe’s tribulations.

At War Over Her Body
The Catholic Church and the Davao City government are waging a fierce battle against each other over contraception. Women like Hazel Baraw get caught in the crossfire. While City Hall has been paying thousands of pesos to those who would opt for tubal ligation or vasectomy, the Church bristles at such tactics, and has offered for free a service to remove IUDs in women.

Subic Rape Case a Wake-Up Call for Davaos Women

The alleged rape in Subic by U.S. soldiers of a 22-year-old Filipina should be a wake-up call for Davaoenos, particularly women, who should condemn the violence and injustice allegedly committed by U.S. forces on Philippine soil in the past years, participants in a forum said last week. Most felt that the rape of the woman from Zamboanga City was not only a crime against her but against the country.

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