Gender, Political Detention, and Human Rights in the Philippines

Abstract

These words come from the first stanza of “Baby in Crame” by women’s rights activist, Judy Taguiwalo. Taguiwalo was detained for two years (1984–1986) in Camp Crame, a detention center in Manila where she gave birth to her first child, June. Taguiwalo was part of MAKIBAKA, a women’s liberation organization forced underground after President Ferdinand E. Marcos declared martial law in the Philippines in 1972. MAKIBAKA (“struggle” in Tagalog) was founded in April 1970 and was also an acronym for Malayang Kilusang ng Bagong Kababaihan (Free Movement of New Women). MAKIBAKA was part of the National Democratic Movement, a grassroots leftist mass movement founded in 1964 that argued that Philippine society suffered from “three basic problems”: U.S. imperialism, bureaucrat capitalism, and feudalism. Working towards national democracy, or a sovereign people-led society, meant eradicating these three problems through an underground movement of guerrilla warfare waged in the countryside and above-ground mass...