Alliance of Filipino women, Gabriela, called on President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. to prioritize fundamental agricultural reforms in time for the celebration of the International Day of Rural Women.
This year’s theme — “Rural women confront the global cost-of-living crisis,” aims to recognize the work of rural women in the “food systems” across the globe.
Gabriela, in relation to this, laid out their demands to help ease the “worsening situation” of rural women in the Philippines. According to the women’s group, in order to help alleviate the suffering of Filipino rural women, the national government must implement several “fundamental reforms” on agriculture.
These reforms are the provision of P15,000 production subsidy, revocation of Republic Act No. 11023 or Rice Liberalization Law, and enactment of the Rice Industry Development Act and Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill.
“Rural women, together with their families, are being criminally neglected by the Philippine government headed by the current president and Department of Agriculture (DA) Secretary Ferdinand Marcos Jr. by continuously implementing neoliberal programs in agriculture – from enacting Rice Liberalization Law to its so-called development projects under its ‘Build, Better, More’ program and mining concessions that massively displaced indigenous women and their communities from their lands and livelihood,” said Gabriela Secretary-General Clarice Palce on Saturday, Oct. 15.
Together with peasant leaders and farmers, Gabriela trooped to the DA’s office in Quezon City on Saturday morning and denounced the administration's "lack of fundamental solutions” amid the worsening economic crisis.