Condemn Dispersal of Women Assembly!

The Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL) condemns the arrests made by the police this morning of women-members of the different organizations allied with AKBAYAN party list as they converged peacefully at the Boy Scouts Circle in Timog St. cor. Tomas Morato Ave. to celebrate International Women's Day (IWD).

"The police has no right to disperse the activity and arrest its organizers since the women-members were just exercising their fundamental right to peacefully assemble as enshrined in the Constitution, " Josua Mata, Secretary General of the APL said.

The United Nations in 1977 has recognized March 8 as the official IWD. Women organizations all over the world hold different forms of activities annually to commemorate the event. In the Philippines, progressive women's groups hold rallies and demonstrations as a response to women's continued inequality in terms of civil and political rights, suffering from economic marginalization, political subordination and violence perpetrated on them by men.

"What happened is a clear indication that the police is still implementing the coercive powers of the state allegedly granted to them through the already lifted Presidential Proclamation 1017. Not content with the police raid of 2 major newspapers, brutal dispersal and arrest of leaders and organizers of peaceful rallies and protest marches commemorating the people power, arrest of a lawmaker, and attempts to arrest still others, the no longer existent PP 1017 is clearly being used to intimidate and frighten people thus permeating a state of terror, " Mata Added.

"The Philippines has a woman for a president but who has obviously disregarded and continue to disregard women's issues as she continue to worsen the plight of the people through her economic policies that are destroying the Filipino family and Filipino values and traditions. Gloria Arroyo has made our lives worse and even more unbearable with the harassments and detention of women activists calling for her ouster from Malacañang," Mata said.

APL calls for the immediate stoppage of the dispersals of peaceful protest activities of different organizations and will continue to hold rallies and demonstrations until Gloria Arroyo and her minions are ousted from office.