Catholic Voices

One very warm February afternoon which according to Pag-Asa, registered at an all time high of 36 degrees, and just a week after Valentine’s Day, the Balay Kalinaw, a Vigan inspired house built to better catch a breeze in warm climes, could barely offer a cool refuge to the gathering crowd of eager listeners.

Yet people were lining up to listen to three people speak about timely (and timeless) topics Puso, Puson at Pananampalataya, (literally Heart, Navel and Worship/Faith).

Danton Remoto, a well known Jesuit educated literary figure and an outspoken gay man, Dr. Margarita Holmes, perhaps the most popular and beloved straight talking psychiatrist and sex therapist in the country, and Sr. Helen Graham, a Mary Knoll Roan Catholic nun and unlikely yet familiar face on Debate, faced an audience of over fifty people that somehow fit into a small function room which was expected to accommodate a maximum of thirty.

Yet if it wasn’t the topic that titillated, more probable was the fact that these three speakers already have between them, a sizeable following. Despite the relatively short notice of the forum, people braved the heat and word spread about the forum.

Between the three speakers, they had PhDs and Masters Degrees that put together would have resembled the bio-data of an expert panel or committee tasked to do extensive research or review. Yet the day’s gathering had simpler though by no means, mundane objectives.

Engaging a conversation about personal reflections, stories and the stuff of Catholic faith, and Catholic lives, the insights offered by the three speakers proved perfect to quench the thirst of parched and weary souls that gathered.

Danton was raised by strict traditional parents in a middle class home. “My father was a military man and a lawyer and he taught me discipline. My mother was a piano and music teacher and a devout Catholic.”

Marge also grew up Catholic and her father was known to have led the construction of many of the main buildings of the UST, the Catholic university her parents expected her to attend.

“When I decided to leave the (Catholic) University of Sto Thomas, and to study in UP instead (a secular state university), I knew the only way to do so was to do well, get a scholarship and support myself. My father used his money to show his disapproval and he refused to finance my education. It was then I knew that the only way to get my father off my back was to graduate Magna Cum Laude.” And that she did. Margie Holmes was one of only seven in the class of 1973 of the UP that graduated Magna Cum Laude.

As tempting it may be for a lot of people to simply dismiss their “stories” as daughters and sons of strict Catholic parents rebelling against the “order” and “restriction” imposed on them by Catholic upbringing, to do so would be to impose a pre-fabricated narrative, certainly a contrived, simplistic one.

But certainly, if rebellion was part of their stories, it couldn’t be dismissed as a story of simple opposition in black and white. After all, real life is rarely lived in those stark contrasts but in full color.

Sister Helen quipped that if the life stories and insights of the two Catholics who spoke before her included key points and encounters with sexuality and identity, hers ought to be enough to complete the conversation since her part of it would be celibacy.

“I was raised by an agnostic. My grandfather one time, when I was about six, asked me one day to tell him all about what we learned in school that day. So I told him about the story of creation in the bible. Of course he said, -that is a lot of hogwash and its not true- so I began reading and got interested in the bible. I wanted to prove my point but I got hooked on the bible and reading it, not just for the text but its many levels of meaning.”

At a time when meanings get distorted and even identities, misrepresented, the afternoon’s conversation offered a real way out of falling into what has perhaps become force of habit among modern society’s denizens: boxing people (ourselves and others) and imagining a great divide between “us,” and “them,” on matters about sex, ethics and Catholic morality.

Danton who is running for public office in a continuing bid to have the LGBT Partylist (Ladlad) accredited by COMELEC, shared his reflections on entering politics as a neophyte.

“When our partylist showed up third on the SWS survey, we were approached by traditional politicians with money. They offered us “protection,” and lots of money. They offered us millions and SUVs. It was all new to me. I didn’t know what to do so I went to church and prayed. I asked for guidance. I don’t know what that means to anybody but I needed to do so. I still go to mass and pray. I don’t want money from those politicians. It’s the sort of money you don’t even know where it comes from!”


Was it Catholic morals? Is it the little voice in a Catholic’s head? Is it guilt? Is it the same guilt we are accustomed to feeling when we desire another sexually?

“I refused to take P.E. in class or join my (male) classmates in the locker room because I felt guilty about my feelings. What else could I do but to avoid it? How was it that I felt attracted to a male classmate and not my female seatmate? I felt guilty because we were all taught it was wrong. It was a sin”

Yearning to become comfortable and free with his sexuality also led Danton to seek higher education in foreign places where he could gain more understanding and acceptance. He traveled, studied and lived in the United Kingdom, the US, Malaysia and Singapore.

Not unlike Joyce’s Stephen Dedalus, Danton’s Jesuit education helped foster in him a love for and ability in literature. Now a known literary figure and among the pioneers of gay literature in the Philippines, Danton himself teaches at the Ateneo, noting the state and tradition of academic freedom by the Jesuits gives him enough space to be himself and to be accepted. Danton is a gay man and LGBT leader who still finds his voice nurtured by Catholic education.

Indeed, for many like Danton, learning to read and excelling in writing often represents a sense of empowerment. But far too often however, there is also a grave danger of losing touch with the ability to think, when we think we know how to read.

“When fundamentalists read the bible, they take it literally and take it as THE word, not an interpretation of it, and we have to understand that that was not the way it was written! There are levels of meaning lost in translation from Hebrew and often we are not able to understand those nuances in meaning,” notes Sr. Helen on stressing the importance of learning how to read mine the bible for meaning.

It bears remembering that it was also a Catholic convert, Marshall McLuhan, a Canadian born Literature Professor turned Media and Cultural Studies guru who pointed out: “We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.”

McLuhan also made it his mission for people to pay more attention to ways of seeing and knowing through an understanding of how our relationships and interaction with various media, affects our own ways of thinking and feeling.

He points out that even the way we use words and “read” isn’t the same way people used to “read,” when mass media was non existent and how Guttenberg’s movable press began a revolution of sorts as well as eventually ushered in what is now ours - a culture of passivity.

Sr. Helen’s favorite anecdote and example about mining the bible for meaning is one about the story of creation itself.

“When the serpent tells Eve to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree, she has a conversation with the serpent. She responds by saying God does not want them near the tree and even touching the fruit. And that if they did eat it, they would die. This was of course not exactly what God said. He just said they must not eat the fruit. But the serpent entices Eve by saying - God doesn’t want you to eat of it because you will become wise, like him. In Genesis, Eve is described as having looked at the apple, appreciated it and decided it was good to eat. So she takes a bite and gives it to Adam who eats it too. After they eat the fruit, they realize they are naked.”

Sr. Helen shares that in Hebrew, there is a lot to be said about the origins for the word naked and wise and that the stories have many possible levels of meaning. She also likes to point out that the way the Bible tells the story also reflects how Eve used her mind in making a decision about eating the fruit of the tree. Not only did she examine and look at the apple, she was also the one who conversed with the snake about the reason why they were not supposed to eat it. In a biblical sense, you have the makings of the first ever-theological discussion ever documented.

The meaning of “Adam” (the first one created by God) in Hebrew also corresponds to humanity and not at all “male” as our socio-biologically oriented culture is wont to dismiss.

Yet by all means, Religious Fundamentalists aren’t the only one who are stuck in a mode of thinking they are unwilling to get out of. In that brief afternoon’s conversation, insights were also offered by way of reflecting on how even the best of social movements working for change and social justice, all too often are stuck in the same rut.

Margie Holmes clearly laid out a challenge (at times, a crisis) faced by feminist movements worldwide. She also lamented the cult of celebrity and her now perhaps, larger-than-life reputation for speaking frankly about sex and being “sex-positive.”

“People have come to expect things from you which is not necessarily reflective of who you are...this is the first time I have ever talked about my personal life in public save for two columns I wrote that were supposed to be personal reflections…Yet even the context of the letters that I get, come from somewhere very personal and people have often agonized about such questions…but when you write a column about sex, people have certain impressions…”

Marge’s lament of being boxed in her most known “public identity” is almost parallel to something Father Charles Curran reflected on. A Catholic priest and Moral Theologian who was barred from teaching in Catholic universities, Charles Curran remains one of the most influential Catholic Moral Theologians from the United States.

“Having become a symbol in someone else’s cause, as he did, subtlety is lost; a persona becomes fixed. To some, Fr. Curran is a radical progressive; to others, an angry dissident. The truth is that he is neither.” (Tom Fox, editor of National Catholic Reporter, Review of Loyal Dissent by Charles Curran)

Bemoaning the state of the discourse on sexual and reproductive rights and health, Marge asked: “The so-called “Pro-Lifers” must have the best publicists. How have we come to be stuck with the label “Pro-Choice” when it doesn’t really begin to address the seriousness or complexity of our position? We aren’t the anti-life but those who say they are “pro-life” and “anti-abortion” have made us so…How can a genuinely pro-life position give so little value to women’s health and lives?”

Speaking about having relationships, Danton shares that among his friends he is labeled a conservative because he values fidelity. He wondered out loud whether it was Catholic upbringing or whether it was a a residue of catholic conservatism? Is fidelity always a heterosexual norm or is it a value expressed across cultures and genders?

Marge addressed a common impression that being sex-positive herself, she and others who enjoy sex, should get away with chiding or taunting others for celibacy or for that matter the choice to honor fidelity and be monogamous! Stressing the importance of not judging others, she also asked out loud whether in being accepting of others and seeking to understand the complexities of each person’s decisions, she was being selectively moral?

In fact such a position is very similarly grounded on the same emphasis to relationality and responsibility cited by Sr. Helen.

But indeed, as Marge points out, “The Right to Choose” cannot compare with the “Right to Life,” and why indeed have they been framed as if on differing sides of completely divergent moral codes? Worse, only the Institutional Church position is accorded a “Moral” value and the secular (or in our case, the Non-Catholic which includes all other religions outside of it), are usually placed outside the discourse of morality.

When those of us within social movements use human rights as basis to our claims today, we usually do so without even considering how it is that on either side of contesting ideological debates, rights aren’t only equally available claims but more importantly, also being used as the basis to justify attacks on the freedom of others, as well as against persons themselves.

Last year, I considered the case of a columnist who earned the ire of the LGBT community for his tirades against homosexuals and glorification of gay bashing. One of the reactions he responded to was one from another columnist who not only outed himself on the occasion but also expressed his having been “hurt” by the column. Using “free speech” to defend himself and even quoting Voltaire, the gay bashing columnist waxed lyrical about freedom of speech and how it has always been used in the defense of unpopular speech. He was after all, a former Supreme Court Justice and no less than the author of law books on the Constitution!

Indeed, if there is one thing students of contemporary legal theory and human rights ought to be aware of is that as useful as “rights” are in expounding on principles of human dignity and the values of freedom and democracy, law often limits the rights discourse to set “conflicts,” and even “imagined” differences in black and white. Save perhaps for some initiatives exploring alternative modes of dispute resolution, the realm of the law is still largely an adversarial one where confrontation is key.

A similar crisis of choice and life was noted by Daniel Maguirre, a Professor of Theology at Marquette University in Milwaukee, in considering how various Catholic Bishops even opted to treat all sides equally on the debate between pro and anti-nuclear weapons positions:

"In the ‘already but not yet’ of Christian existence, members of the church choose different paths to move toward the realization of the kingdom in history. Distinct moral options coexist as legitimate expressions of Christian choice." This "prochoice" statement recently made by the Catholic bishops of the United States has nothing to do with abortion. Rather, it addresses the possibility of ending life on earth through nuclear war. On that cataclysmic issue, the bishops’ pastoral letter on peace warns against giving "a simple answer to complex questions." It calls for "dialogue." Hand-wringingly sensitive to divergent views, the bishops give all sides a hearing, even the winnable nuclear war hypothesis -- a position they themselves find abhorrent. At times they merely raise questions when, given their own views, they might well have roundly condemned.

Change the topic to abortion, and nothing is the same. On this issue, the bishops move from the theological mainstream to the radical religious right. Here they have only a single word to offer us: No! No abortion ever -- yesterday, today or tomorrow. No conceivable tragic complexity could ever make abortion moral. Here the eschaton is reached: there is no "already but not yet"; there is only "already." "Distinct moral options" do not exist; only unqualified opposition to all abortions moves toward "the realization of the kingdom in history." There is no need for dialogue with those who hold other views or with women who have faced abortion decisions."

Sr. Helen’s lecture on changes within the Catholic Church, especially on the history of social teachings, demonstrated how contrary to as is often portrayed, positions of those in the Church and those within social movements aren’t always at loggerheads.

But while a historical shift occurred social teachings of the church, somehow teachings in sexual morality never moved forward. In fact she pointed out how so much like law, ethics within Catholic discourse has been limited from moving forward.

Sr. Helen marks the shifts in Church social teaching as demonstrated by 1) a departure from classicism which was hierarchical and deductive, to that of historical consciousness, where “truth” has to do with history; 2) an emphasis on personal freedom which moved away from the an emphasis of “nature” and “obedience” as the basis of faith; 3) Relationality and Responsibility in Ethical Life where goals determine the means and the recognition that a person has multiple relationships and complex identities.

Mike Ridell, elsewhere writes:

“As a Catholic myself, and a recovering theologian, I find myself not only perplexed but increasingly embarrassed by the bizarre and authoritarian posturing emanating from the Vatican. We in the West had thought we had put this chapter of our Church behind us. But an embattled Curia seems to grow more strident and dogmatic as it realizes that control is slowly but steadily slipping away from it. The attitude reminds me of English tourists who think that if they just speak more loudly, foreigners will understand them.”Seen here: The Ratzinger Doctrine

Daniel Maguirre, also noted

“Ten years ago, Catholic theologian Charles Curran stated in the Jurist (32:183 [1973]) that "there is a sizable and growing number of Catholic theologians who do disagree with some aspects of the officially proposed Catholic teaching that direct abortion from the time of conception is always wrong." That "sizable number" has been growing since then despite the inhibiting atmosphere. It is safe to say that only a minority of Catholic theologians would argue that all abortions are immoral, though many will not touch the subject for fear of losing their academic positions.”

In the past and in certain Catholic institutions, there has always been room enough for Catholics to dissent but admittedly, given the state of rising religious fundamentalism and all manner of conflicts “in the name of religion,” it may be more accurate to say that we aren’t just losing more and more of that space but more and more, we are tragically losing the ability to do so.

And while it is easy to lay all the blame on an ever conservative Catholic hierarchy, passivity is what is perhaps crippling the Catholic Church in certainly less obviously insidious ways.

A passivity perhaps also exemplified by losing touch with the (pardon the Catholic in me – or humor me perhaps) “God given” ability to think and to do so freely.

This actually reminds me about something I read about the work of Surrealist Artist/Film maker, Luis Bunuel who while himself a Christian, was always a strong critique of Catholic teaching against sexual freedom. (His works often earned the ire of the Vatican and the L’Age d’Or was even banned for fifty years) Of his Art, Joan Mellen observed that this the artist had to say:

"We have been rendered unwittingly comfortable within our psychic cages to the point where we prefer them to liberty, an experience and aspiration we neither understand or desire"

My own reflection on this goes more along the lines of considering what the freedom of others means to us in our own experience and exercise of freedom.

At day’s end, the conversations did more than just give off a few sparks. While nobody claimed to have all the answers, everyone took home a myriad of insights for their own reflection. Several others even committed to meet again and gather together soon, each one of us hopeful that the circle of willing and able Catholic Voices will grow.

Additional References and Must Reads:

Religion On-line A veritable treasure trove of articles and writings by theologians, the site also includes valuable links to articles by feminist theologians.

Reviews and Articles on the Works of Luis Bunuel Yet another Jesuit educated and Spanish born Surrealist Artist/Film maker, Bunuel's L'Age d'Or was banned within a few weeks from its release.

Life and Works of James Joyce A Portal and website of the James Joyce Center in Dublin, Ireland, this site and many others like it on the works of James Joyce offer a glimpse into the life of who for me (and many other minions out there) is one of the greatest literary geniuses of all time. Joyce was Jesuit educated and a literary critic ahead of his time. He is one of Marshal McLuhan's primary influences.

Offical Site of Marshall McLuhan's Estate. The site contains links and articles about the works of McLuhan.

Elections 2007: A Contest of Meanings

Reducing the whole concept of "democracy" to the (often futile) electoral exercise that is "the VOTE," is perhaps the one of the most tragic things in history.

The reality is, what makes "voting" meaningful is anchored on so much more than the actual getting your thumb inked, your fingernails dirty and pretending to care as you fill out the ballot with what you think are "the lesser evil" of the very short list of actually qualified candidates you actually give a toss about!

Really. Isn't it (the exercise) anchored on the concept of participation and decision-making? But when you know that elections in the last twenty or so years after that now vague memory of the EDSA People Power uprising (not the texting revolt ala GSM) has not in any likelihood ever been honest, why bother? Why care even?

Now that politically paid ads have actually began flooding the local airwaves, I suppose my desire to tune out completely (by not watching the local channels until this crap is over) is one shared by millions of other Filipino who have simply gotten sick of Philippine politics.

For a lot of social activists, doing information campaigns during the election period has meant dealing with an erstwhile stupefied electorate. In a brave attempt to challenge the traditional way the game of politics is played, activists have in the past, engaged in Voter's Education classes, fora and even distributed materials on various issues.

Interestingly enough, the strategy of tapping "grassroots participation," and networking at the community level (barrios, sitios, barangays) is something both social activists from the church and the rest of secular (for lack of a better term) NGOs and cause oriented groups have gained expertise on.

While in the past, social movements (more or less) broadly united on (what were) basic human rights and political issues (anti-dictatorship, anti-political repression), it will be interesting to see how this time, even with marked differences within and among social movements, such campaigns will be carried on.

For one, a Catholic Church hierarchy which has been "vocal" (others will argue, not enough) about the current administrations' "shortcomings," has also turned out to be the administration's most ardent supporter on its restrictive policies on modern family planning and anti "Reproductive Health" stance.

Yet as with other massive institutions, (no matter how long-standing and influential) it wouldn't be accurate to speak of the Catholic church, or even the hierarchy as a totally monolithic or united one, as far as many of these issues are concerned. To be sure, bishops are bickering just as feminists and social activists are arguing among themselves.

Issues like "condom use" have been one among many where various members of the Catholic hierarchy have stood by different positions.

Yet many of these differences are hardly ever deliberated on by the average voter, let alone the average politician. Unfortunately, capturing nuances has never been a strong card of media. After all, for a media system and industry which thrives on ad placements (whether political or commercial), content hardly ever matters anymore. In the end what matters is an "image."

In a recent Robin Williams film (Man of the Year), where the comic plays a John Stewart-like comic on TV and ends up running for President (of the US), when an employee of the computer software company that was contracted to do the election count found a glitch that ended in erroneous poll results, the company lawyer (Jeff Goldblum) tells her off: "The appearance of legitimacy is more important than legitimacy itself."

And perhaps one good example of "the sign of the times" is the Ad by one Senator hopeful where women celebrities speak about Women's Status, Respect for Women and also Violence Against Women. For its first two weeks, the ad was run with a notice announcing the support/backing or a known national women's organization, GABRIELA. Two weeks later, the same ad played, this time announcing not only a different organization, but rather a Catholic organization, the Couples for Christ, which has been among the leading Catholic organizations campaigning against women's health agendas inclusive of modern family planning, post abortion care and adolescent reproductive health!

Women’s Human Rights and today’s Women Leaders

I confess. I too was a "Colegiala" once. (No kidding?) I guess the Blog's title is something sort of a dead give away when it comes to the Catholicism part. On the other hand, a lot has changed over the years but a lot of things seem the same. With much trepidation, I addressed a Generation of young Colegialas (I had more jokes than the lecture I shared here) and worried constantly whether I was speaking a language they could even relate to. I'm not really just thinking about English facility but the "gap" which is both cultural and generational. Even if I had references to Angelina Jolie, The Matrix and a handful of other current pop culture obsessions, I worry that I barely made "contact."(Excerpts from a lecture at the 5th Young Women Leader's Conference at Miriam College, headed by Miriam, St.Scholastica, Holy Spirit and Assumption)


The most difficult part of my task today I think lies with the basic problem of bridging what to my mind is not just a generation gap (obviously), but also a glaring cultural and historical gap when it comes to coming to an understanding of women’s human rights today.

I realize that while at this day and age, human rights or for that matter, “women’s human rights” is no longer a new term or unfamiliar catchphrase, it bears noting that this doesn’t necessarily mean that most people, including young people share a clear enough idea of what the words mean in a historical sense. Unfortunately, not all schools offer human rights courses and let’s face it, the topic of human rights isn’t exactly what proliferates You Tube, Bebo, Blogger or Frenster.

Our current understanding of “rights” today has come a long way from the origin of the term in liberal philosophy. Today, when we refer to human rights it both encompasses survival needs as well as claims to basic freedoms like the right to development. Even more importantly, human rights discourse today have come to encompass ethical standards and no less than the concept of human dignity.

Thus when we speak of human rights, women’s human rights, we certainly do not solely refer to the “legal rights” enshrined or documented in law or treaties.

On the other hand, it is also important to understand the (Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women) CEDAW, not just as a historic document to chronicle the advancement of women’s rights, petrified in print. But how we use it and engage it is also very much a living testament to our evolving bases of ethical societal standards by way of the discourse in human rights.

For today’s generation of women who grew up perhaps, not exactly lacking “role models” (from Ang Su Kyi to Lara Croft-tomb raider-) that is, without a dearth of strong women leaders (hopefully the present administration not included?). With opportunities in various levels of public and political arenas opening up for women, how does one go about convincing budding young women leaders or aspiring women’s rights advocates and feminists that here, and now, we still have far to go in terms of claiming a total victory for women’s empowerment?

In other words, despite erstwhile claims that feminism is dead or that there is no more need for feminism, young women today in fact need to brace themselves (and be ready to face) what has been the “backlash” pushing back gains of the last 30 years in women’s rights.

Today’s generation of young women, especially Filipino women and girls who perhaps are still a little better educated than their counterparts from other developing countries, more adept in the English language (post colonialism’s struggling linggua franca), a little more exposed to ways of the West than other cultures, will often claim that there is no such thing as gender inequality, and that women are in fact, “placed on a pedestal” in Philippine society.

In a forum also discussing the women’s Convention in Makati last year, a young urban professional in the advertising industry spoke about her own misgivings about so-called “gender subordination,” in the open forum. She was (not unlike all of you), talented, upper middle class, educated in the good schools, and independent. She said she both didn’t feel it at work or growing up and wondered out loud what exactly it was we were talking about.

To be totally honest, save for the upper middle class bit (I’m more middle, middle class), I was also brought up in a household where gender was never used against me by my own parents as a “limitation” to what I could do and accomplish. But of course growing up in a Catholic girl’s school, having conservative spinster aunts, and finding myself in the “macho” College of Law, I was also always acutely aware that the “limits” set on women and girls, as well as the discriminatory treatment against women in society (some of them culturally passed off and accepted as “protective” rather than sexist) didn’t really always need to come across as the “staple forms” of “sexism” that by way of media and pop culture, we have come to almost exclusively associate with the worse forms of rape, sexual harassment and domestic violence.

Indeed we must remember that even Violence Against Women (VAW) (e.g. rape, sexual harassment and domestic violence) wasn’t always something we could even publicly address and consider as human rights violations in the past. In fact, the Convention on The Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the treaty on women’s human rights that gives us the basis to do so, doesn’t contain the term, “Violence Against Women.” In fact, General Recommendation No. 19 on VAW (the CEDAW Committee’s definition of gender based violence and VAW) came much later (1992).

Whenever women’s rights activists engage the convention, ever expanding on and expounding on the forms of discrimination and gender inequality as experienced by many women, in different situations, across cultures, races and classes, we should do so with an awareness that I think is best explained by something Prof. Gigi Francisco said:

“A gain in women’s equality in one space may matter little or become altogether meaningless in another space that itself undergoing a dynamic shift. This multi-centricity challenges the women’s movement’s ability to deploy our energies in different spaces simultaneously ” Gigi Francisco, in “Sighting paradoxes for gender in the social movements” DAWN-Southeast Asia

This means for today’s generation of Filipino women and girls, coming to terms with issues like how overseas employment and newly opening and relatively “better-paying” jobs like call centers on one significant level present real means of economic emancipation for thousands (if not millions) of Filipino women and livelihood for their households, on another level, the burgeoning demand for migrant women’s cheap labor in the “service industries” and the outsourcing of call center work also represents the ever growing divide between “first world” and “third world,” and ever worsening geopolitical inequality.

As feminist Barbara Ehrenreich observed in 2002: “Over the last thirty years, as the rich countries have grown much richer, the poor countries have become in both absolute and relative terms- poorer. Global inequalities in wages are particularly striking. In Hong Kong for instance, the wages of a Filipina domestic are about fifteen times the amount she could make as a school teacher in the Philippines.”

Indeed, twenty five years after the Women’s Convention was adopted, young women, particularly, Filipino women face challenges in many ways similar to the challenges faced by women of a past generation, and yet, in many ways, entirely unique to these current times. As an example, women still get sexually harassed in school, workplaces and in public, but with the proliferation of technologies such as cell phones and the internet, the means available and the “places” where harassment takes place can range from the actual to the virtual.

While today, as before, the Women’s Convention itself still serves as a strategic tool for the setting of standards, in the legal and political, economic and cultural spheres, for women’s right to equality, this function is by no means easily dismissed as just symbolic or rhetoric.

In 2000, the Optional Protocol to the Women’s Convention came into force, over eighteen years after the Convention itself came into force (1982). Under the Optional Protocol, the CEDAW Committee now has complaints procedures, on top of what only used to be monitoring procedures via the periodic reporting process by State parties.

Likewise, always bringing the principles equality, non-discrimination and state accountability in CEDAW into relevant application to the changing times has been a challenge that both women working within the UN process and outside of it, have faced.

The CEDAW Committee has adopted many of these attempts as General Recommendations, which interpret the Convention’s principles in the light of emerging and current situations affecting women.

This has also included consolidating “gains” in the discourse of gender equality and women’s human rights, from the ICPD in Cairo 1994 (where reproductive rights and health gained currency as human rights), the Beijing Platform in 1995 (where women’s empowerment and decision-making as the enabling conditions for rights exercise were highlighted) and various significant and hard won consensus documents.

But as I earlier mentioned, these gains in women’s rights are always under threat of being pushed back and it is today’s generation of women and girls who will have to face these challenges head on. The list of challenges is of course myriad and by no means exclusive but nonetheless, I have identified a few, which I think are becoming very important to this generation of Filipino women:

(1) Sexual and Reproductive Rights in the context of the resurgence of Religious Fundamentalism

As states fall back on what were previously considered mandates in health and welfare services, fundamentalist religious movements have sought to monopolize the discourse on morality and ethics, pushing back the debate on sexuality and reproductive matters back to the dark ages.

The irony here is that the language of rights also finds its way into the debates when Fundamentalists themselves claim THE curtailment of their right to religious expression, notwithstanding agendas very much against pluralism or tolerance of religious and secular difference.

(2) The Right to Work in relation to the right to life and the right to development in the context of Globalization and Migration

As mentioned, the sheer reality of job availability abroad for Filipino women is a complex of paradoxes. Women assert this right to work in the face of certain economic and personal crises as well as the genuine right for advancement but majority of the very work opportunities that open up to accommodate cheap migrant labor perpetuates racial and sexual discrimination on a global scale. The situation of women can range from the slavery like conditions to slightly better working conditions and 15 times better pay (that is compared to conditions in the country) but still at a much lower cost to the host state which is interested in “cutting back” on services to its own citizens. An example of this is the mass migration of women to work as domestics and nannies to children in the first world.

(3) Sexual slavery in Trafficking and prostitution (both global and national borders)

The burgeoning and thriving industries of sex trafficking and prostitution is also a complex issue, which is also closely related to the previously mentioned issues of migration and sexual rights, often with feminists themselves engaged in impassioned debates over the language of legal rights and the role of the State.

On the other hand, the fact that thousands of Filipino women as well as many others still get caught in the web of sexual exploitation, the issue is clearly also remains as the unchallenged culture of sexism and commercialism, where “women as sex” have become the very commodities of a global market of what is widely accepted and dictated as the market of “male sexual needs.”

(4) Access to information, education and technology in relation to both the enabling conditions of rights exercise, as well as the means to engage in cross cultural exchanges and the facilitation of movement building

My favorite media studies pioneer, Marshall McLuhan once said “we shape our tools and then our tools shape us.”

In its heyday (which is very much ongoing), information technology is often touted as a “revolution,” as if in every sense egalitarian and accessible to all. Likewise, the proliferation of information across media platforms is often represented as signs of a “free media,” and in turn, a “thriving democracy.”

Yet without the ability to think for ourselves and a genuine understanding of the interests and institutions that control both information, media and technology itself, we are perhaps no different from the characters in Matrix, asleep, in a dreamlike trance, our ways of thinking dictated by and confined to what is allowed. Are we really using technology? Utilizing it to its full creative and transformative potential or merely consumers of it?

As today’s generation of women leaders, and hopefully passionate feminists and advocates, it is a world of both opportunities and challenges that awaits you. In making a commitment to advance women’s human rights everywhere, yours will no doubt be a difficult task. But I have no doubt you can face up to it - (and even have fun doing so.)[Picture from this site which is a great site for studying portion of the "History of Human Rights," particularly, on the UN engagement :Eleanor Roosevelt who is credited with writing the draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights]

Discomfort Zones : Voices in the Margin

A Filipino woman, who is a domestic helper in Hong Kong gets paid twice to three times higher than a government lawyer, most public servants (at least that is, officially speaking), or perhaps even more than triple or four times than a public school teacher.

In Hong Kong, it is also fairly "common" for Filipino domestics to be totally controlled by their employers from strictly enforced schedules and order of chores, right down to the length and number of baths to be taken in a day, what to wear and not to wear (usually jewelry, nail polish and tight jeans), and to limit "off days" to the daytime and impose additional duties (on top of the contractual duties of a domestic) like working in the employers place of business or work, service the employers' relatives and friends' households - without additional or overtime pay.

The paradoxes of globalization when it comes to women's rights is quite a long and complicated list. On the one hand, the availability of "better" (and better is relative, a term qualified by one's place and locale in the global economy) jobs abroad for women, has long represented a shift in the familial roles and responsibilities of "mothers," and women in the family.

As breadwinners, often of extended families, Filipino women bear the burden of an ailing economy, merely able to keep afloat because of dollar remittances.

Of course while many Filipino men have stepped in to fill the ensuing gap in the local "care giving aspect" of family life, many more have not done so.

Just as Filipino and migrant women workers of the "third world" step in to fill the "care/service/nurturing" work first world women have been freed (liberated) from and neither their spouses and partners AND their States have pitched in to take on or shoulder the work, the ensuing VOID for local families of migrant women is being filled in by extended families and networks of women, and in some cases, the men.

Yet mostly, migrant women workers still get blamed a lot by so-called child rights advocates when children who lack care and guidance fall into all sorts of trouble. Never mind that these children have fathers and that the state isn't exactly providing adequate child care support for working parents. Mothers still take the blame.

It is certainly a complicated issue, one which cannot be easily summed up or explained through the usual linear analysis of STATE vs CITIZEN. It is very much also between STATES (geopolitical inequalities) and among WOMEN (North-South) and our communities and families!

The devaluation of the "care economy" is not only demonstrated by the lack of professionalism and dignity by which employers treat their domestics, either by withholding just compensation and benefits, but also exists when we deny the humanity of these workers (and our own) by denying the bonds that form over periods of time spent together in the places we call home. Many domestics have suffered the wrath of jealous employers who get alarmed by their children's closeness with nannies, or get threatened when domestics have their own lives and express the need for days off and socialization with friends outside the family.

With thousands of Hong Kong based domestic workers going to the streets to protest the GMA administration's latest gimmick, an accreditation process that will impose untold fees and expenses on already working and employed HK Filipino domestic workers, surely there is more to this than the instant fees that we have every right to suspect will line the coffers of electioneering politicos!? (After all, funds have disappeared before)

Interestingly enough, huge transnational corporations have recently been making headway in terms of taking over what has been the usual occupation of "placement agencies," which are usually locally organized. While the situation and track record of such local agencies is hardly ideal, it is also interesting that a growing number of Filipino women domestics in HK have already been able to maintain their own contacts and work independently for many years. Many successful ones are the cleaning ladies who live away from their places of work and come in to do the work once or twice a week with several employers.

With the entry of huge companies to undertake "job placement," or even "sourcing" and "cleaning services" we again are likely to see mixed results. It may professionalize" the work on some level by imposing contracts for the protection of the worker, but on the other hand, it can greatly reduce the rates (all over again) because agencies impose a considerable fee, which in this case will not be a one time deployment fee. In fact, domestics who turn to work for the various cleaning companies (as is a growing trend in the US), do so as workers or employees of the company, not the household.

Of course, such an arrangement is not likely to easily alter or affect the need for nannies and other care work since unlike keeping house (laundry, cleaning, dishes etc.), taking care of relatives and small children undeniably requires more than paper proof of qualifications. Or does it?

References

Global Woman Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy (Ed. Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russel Hochschild

BBC Special Site on Migration (Stories and Features)