PRESS STATEMENT
8 March 2000

An estimated 15,000 women together with supporters joined today's nationwide protest led by the militant women's group GABRIELA in commemoration of March 8 International Day of Women.

Reverberating with calls for President Joseph Estrada's resignation, almost 20 separate women's protest actions of GABRIELA chapters and member organizations took place in Baguio City, Bicol, Cavite, Cebu, Davao City, General Santos, Isabela, Iloilo, Pampanga and the National Capital Region. This year, women in Batangas, Laguna and Mindoro Occidental joined the ranks of GABRIELA women in a militant commemoration of March 8.

In Manila alone, 5,000 protesters led by GABRIELA marched from Welcome Rotonda to Mendiola in a wave of purple banners calling for President Estrada's ouster.

"Women all over the country has had enough of the daily tortous life of dealing with scarcity, of being subjected to various forms of degradation just to survive. A government that does not move towards resolving this situation of crisis must step down" said GABRIELA secretary general Liza Largoza Maza.

Leaders of GABRIELA marched the street in purple shirts forming the words ESTRADA RESIGN! while an effigy of President Estrada, in boxer shorts, recline in oil price had battered Filipino women black and blue by this US-backed macho fascist regime. This regime's political patronage of the Marcoses and underworld "kumpadres", endorsement of the VFA and ushering the return of martial law are blows aimed to knock women out" added Maza.

Instead, the women protesters, in a program held in Mendiola, displayed the many ways women intend to oust the current administration. An oversize prescription pad diagnosed President Estrada as "mentally and psychologically unfit" and recommends for the president's "forced resignation". A satire judgement meted out lifetime imprisonment with "no conjugal visits from legal spouse or otherwise". Carrying large replicas of a woman's shoe, eraser, schoolbook (entitled GO BACK TO SCHOOL), hammer and broomstick, the women's group shoved the reclining Estrada effigy from its pedestal and burned the seal of the President of the Republic of the Philippines.

Aside from GABRIELA's member organizations, the militant women's group was joined by the Sandigan ng Manggagawa sa Shoemart, SAKAMAY, COURAGE, ACT, Kilusang Mayo Uno, Kilusan ng Magbubukid sa Pilipinas as well as other organizations under Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN).

In Bohol, some 2,000 members of GABRIELA and supporters staged a die-in and a noise barrage this afternoon in protest of the intensifying militarization in the area under the government's OPLAN MAKABAYAN which has displaced a number of women and thier families from their homes and livelihood. While in Iloilo City, GABRIELA women staged a "Hukumang Bayan" at the Freedom Grandstand with the Estrada administration standing in trial for its crimes committed against the Filipino women.

"March 8 traces its roots from thousands of women workers dissatisfied with their working situation in New York and Europe more than a century ago. Today, Filipino women are continuing this tradition of militancy in the midst of people's growing discontent over the inutile and despicable Estrada administration and women clamoring for a substantial change in our lives" said GABRIELA chairperson Sr. Mary John Mananzan.

"It is timely that International Women's Day this year should fall on Ash Wednesday, a day for repentance. If there is even an iota of morals left in President Estrada, the only acceptable repentance he can make is to resign as president" concluded Sr. Mary John Mananzan.###