Women rising for Revolution

Women storm Aquino with calls to #Rise4Revolution!

Valentine's flash mob:Thousands of women and their supporters dance in front of the Lapu-Lapu Shrine of Rizal Park in support of internationally renowned playwright and One Billion Rising Founder Eve Ensler who 18 years ago gave birth to The Vagina Monologues. (Robert Amoroso/InterAksyon.com)

The annual One Billion Rising (OBR) went under way for the fourth year, heaping a litany of woes on the government of President Benigno Aquino III, whom they blamed for the abuse and poverty suffered by millions of Filipinas "sacrificed for the global terror war games and the globalized economic crisis."

Thousands of women and their supporters danced at the terraced pavements of the Lapu-Lapu Shrine in downtown Manila’s Rizal Park in step with internationally renowned playwright and One Billion Rising founder Eve Ensler who 18 years ago gave birth to The Vagina Monologues.

“We have to escalate One Billion Rising every year, to break through the patriarchal wall of oppression and denial, to transform the mindset that has normalized this violence, to bring women survivors into their bodies, their strength, their determination, their energy and power and to dance up the will of the world to finally make violence against women unacceptable,” Ensler said, as she cited how she was driven to tears when indigenous women and girls she met last week in Mindanao shared their horrors of military attacks on their communities. 

Joms Salvador, Secretary General of the GABRIELA Alliance of Filipino Women said this year’s call “Listen! Act! Rise!” is a fitting rebuke to President Aquino’s unfeeling and uncaring governance. 

“Women and their families endured Aquino's Daang Matuwid for six years without an improvement in their lot.  In fact, their sufferings worsened.  Impunity on violence against women resulted to a sharp increase in the number of cases of VAW in Aquino's time.  

"Government neglect, especially of victims of disasters worsened poverty in already poor areas.  Even basic services like education and health was rendered at the mercy of private companies for profit. These are but some reasons why women Rise for Revolution.”  - InterAksyon

Eve Ensler, founder of One Billion Rising global campaign turns emotional after hearing the stories of the Lumad evacuees inside the evacuation center at a church compound in Davao City on Friday, February 12. (Ace R. Morandante/davaotoday.com)