Ms. Gina de Venecia, wife of former Speaker Jose De Venecia, Jr.,  was one of the speakers at a program staged at Plaza Miranda in Quiapo, Manila on Saturday during a rally to commemorate the International Women’s Day. She told the crowd of the time when as a friend she tried advising President Gloria Arroyo about ongoing corruption in her government, but only to be told, “Gina, I’m the president; you’re just a housewife.” (PDN  PHOTO  BY  ERIC  ISAAC)

Celebration of the International Women’s Day staged at Plaza Miranda in Quiapo, Manila last Saturday made quite a twist in itself when women from militant groups denounced their peer: President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

There was obviously an irony there when, in celebration of their womanhood, these women denounced a fellow woman. Such act underscores the point that womanhood is celebrated not merely by the fact that one is a woman. It also denotes that womanhood is not simply gender classification; it goes beyond being in the female class.

“We are the women men warned us about.

We are the women who know that all issues are ours, who will reclaim our wisdom, reinvent our tomorrow, question and redefine everything, including power.

We have worked now for decades to name the details of our need, rage, hope, vision. We are weary of listing refrains on our suffering-to-entertain or be simply ignored. We are down with vague words and real waiting: famishing for action, dignity, joy. We intend to do more than merely endure and survive.

They have tried to deny us, define us, defuse us, denounce us; to jail, enslave, exile, gas, rape, beat, burn, bury-and bore us. Yet nothing, not even the offer to save their failed system, can grasp us.
For thousands of years, women have had responsibility without power-while men have had power without responsibility. We offer those men who risk being brothers a balance, a future, a hand. But with or without them, we will go on.

For we are the Old Ones, the New Breed, the Natives who came first but lasted, indigenous to an utterly different dimension. We are the girl child in Zambia, the grandmother in Burma, the woman in El Salvador and Afghanistan, Finland and Fiji. We are whole-song and rainforest; the depth-wave rising huge to shatter glass power on the shore; the lost and despised who, weeping, stagger into the light.

All this we are. We are intensity, energy, the people speaking—who no longer will wait and who cannot on our tongues.

….We are the women who will transform the world.”

THIS month (March) is women’s month. In keeping with the significance of the season, I would like to focus our attention on a woman leader of Pangasinan who has been overlooked by local historians.

I am referring to Binari Kabontatala.

This probably is the first time you will come across the word binari. I, myself, coined this word. Literally, it means biin ari, which I would like to mean princesa. (Kabontatala was the daughter of the anak banwa of Domalandan).

Princesa, however, is Spanish. So it is incumbent upon us to coin a new word which would sound native. Binari in English means woman ruler.

Who is Binari Kabontatala, and what was her role in Pangasinan history? Read more

THE BIBLICAL reference to Pangasinan being the place where the “salt of the earth” is found, is turning truer as time passes. The meaning of Pangasinan or “the place where salt is made” is derived from the salt harvested from its earth, which is known all over the country for its extraordinary quality.

Every so often, the allegory refers to the quality of its people, attributing the quality of her salt to her people alleging that the consistent use of this excellent salt to their diet contributes to theirextraordinary intelligence, their natural patriotism and heroism, and their pursuit of excellence in whichever field they find themselves in. Here in the land of salt, extraordinary leaders are born and bred, claims only that the salt, a gift from God to the people of the province, makes them so.

While the above claim maybe conjured to be purely more poetic, more and more of the medicinal properties or iodine in natural salt in the right amounts especially for the mental development of babies of pregnant women become relevant. We seriously take a second look at Pangasinan’s salt and wonder aloud, if indeed, we have taken this extraordinary gift which doubly underlines the quality of its people too, as first claimed. As they say in the expression, it is worth “putting your money where your mouth is”. Does it stand close scrutiny and pass the test? Is it scientifically founded? Is the quality truly rare and indigenous to the salt harvested in Pangasinan, and therefore worth marketing? Indeed, it is not only pure poetry, or even pure talk, to say with impunity, that “Yes, indeed, Pangasinan’s salt is all of the above.” Read more

LINGAYEN - - -   The province joins the nationwide  Women’s Month celebration with this year’s carrying theme, “CEDAW ng Bayan, Yaman ng Kababaihan.”

CEDAW, which means Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, serves as an urgent call to raise the consciousness of women of their rights and empower them to become strong and self-sufficient individual.

The National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women (NCRFW), the country’s lead agency, through its memorandum circular, has called on all local government units (LGUs)  to focus on the need to generate resources to finance initiatives on gender equality and empowerment of women.

For its part, the provincial  government of Pangasinan, through its provincial social welfare office, has organized  a  group  called   Provincial Federation of  Kalipunan ng Liping Pilipina (KALIPI)  with a  mission of  encouraging  women especially in the   grassroot   level  to participate in the development efforts for their own advancement.

Provincial Social Welfare Officer Emilio P. Samson, Jr.  said the KALIPI, which is now on its fifth year, has  been organized in  compliance  with the Republic Act of 7192 of the Local Government Code of 1991 or Women in Development and Nation Building Act. Read more