On Aug. 9, Gabriela Network USA, a Philippine-U.S. women’s solidarity mass organization, announced that, “de facto
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has once again brandished an undemocratic, unjust and cruel rule” by putting three GABNet leaders on a “watch list” and preventing them from boarding their return flights to the United States. The GABNet 3—Dr. Annalisa Enrile, Ninotchka Rosca and Judith Mirkinson—were in the Philippines to attend the 10th bi-annual Women’s International Solidarity Affair.
The GABNet 3 from left, Dr. Annalisa Enrile, Ninotchka Rosca and Judith Mirkinson.
Photo: GABRIELA Network
GABNet launched a letter-writing campaign to put pressure on the U.S. government and its ambassador in the Philippines.Several organizations took up the call, including the Alliance for a Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines and the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism).
ANSWER supporters sent 1,360 faxes and 2,272 emails to their congressional representatives and to Ambassador Kristie Kenney in the Philippines.
In addition, GABNet called for emergency protests and on Aug. 13 hundreds rallied nationwide outside Filipino Consulates to demand the immediate release of the GABNet 3. The Party for Socialism and Liberation participated in protests in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City and San Francisco.
Due to the determined international campaign conducted by the Gabriela Network and its supporters, on Aug. 14, the GABNet 3 boarded flights to the United States. They suffered continued harassment by immigration officials, but returned safely the same day.
According to a GABNet statement, “U.S.-born Enrile and the two other women were never informed of the reason their names appeared on a watchlist. The only reason they were targeted, the women speculate, is because of their efforts to defend human rights in the Philippines. ‘I am glad to be back home,’ Dr. Enrile states, ‘but this will not discourage me from going back to the Philippines and exposing the tyrannical policies of the Macapagal-Arroyo regime.'”
President Macapagal-Arroyo took office in 2001. Under her regime, approximately 900 activists, clergy, labor leaders and their families, 90 of which were Gabriela members or affiliates, have been murdered or disappeared. The International Press Institute cites the Philippines as the most dangerous country for journalists after Iraq.
One of the GABNet 3, acclaimed writer Ninotchka Rosca, wrote, “all I could think of was my mother. Because I couldn’t stay for long periods at her house (it could be watched, could be raided; I could be ambushed), our interaction was reduced to a ‘hello, mama’ upon arrival, ‘goodbye, mama’ a few minutes later as I rushed out, carrying a change of clothes… Bitter, indeed, was this recent trip to the homeland; shocking, indeed, to find it still in the grip of such poverty that tyranny had become a necessary component of the social order.”
Rosca continued, “Throughout all this, the Macapagal-Arroyo government’s hatred remains directed at those who would affirm that there is such a country as the Philippines, such a people as Filipinos, such women as Filipinas, who are due genuine independence, freedom and rights.”
