October, 2008

Hosting this year’s 2nd Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) is no less than a major exporter of human labor---the government of the Philippines. Ranking second to Mexico, the Arroyo administration boasts of more than 10 million migrant Filipino workers, most of whom are women who were forced to leave their families behind to seek better opportunities abroad and provide for their needs. More than ever, this current administration eyes this event as an opportunity to unrelentingly push the rummage sale of Filipino  overseas workers especially women.
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Gabriela Women's Party today scored the Arroyo government and the Global Forum for Migration and Development (GFMD) for the intensified trafficking of Filipino women and children, through a protest parade today at the Department of Foreign Affairs in Pasay City.  read more »

“There is no one else to blame for the beheading of Jenifer Bidoya butGMA. In favor of preparing an ostentatious welcome for current andfuture business partners in the Global Forum on Migration andDevelopment (GFMD), President Arroyo has further pushed aside thewelfare of Filipinos abroad,” said Gabriela Women's Party Rep. Luz Ilagan.  read more »

“She has robbed them off their money, rights and even votes before; now she is depriving OFWs and their families a joyous Christmas,” says Rep. Luz Ilagan of Gabriela Women’s Party. “GMA is worse than the Grinch.”  read more »

“This is not just a show of the famed Filipino hospitality; This is a proof that migrant workers around the world are one in opposing the plan of business-minded governments to turn them into milking cows and modern-day slaves through the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD).”  read more »

Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Luz Ilagan witnessed firsthand how a weak inter-agency committee formed by the Philippine government as a result of the RP-Malaysia Working Group in  2005 to ensure the humane detention and deportation of undocumented Filipino migrants in Sabah has neglected the deportees, during a Fact-Finding Mission in Zamboanga last October 2-6.  read more »

Aside from urging the Philippine government to provide assistance to thousands of Filipino workers stranded in the Iranian island of Kish and Omani town of Buraimi, Dubai due to new and stricter visa rule implemented by the United Arab Emirates, Gabriela Women’s Party renews its call for the Arroyo administration to stop the promotion of labor export as a solution to the increasing unemployment in the country and instead implement policies that will secure high standard of living among Filipinos such as wage increases and increase in the budget for social services.  read more »

Gabriela Women's Party Rep. Luz Ilagan will join a Fact Finding Mission in Zamboanga City from October 3 to 6 to check on the condition of Filipinos deported by the Malaysian government from Sabah, during the third wave of massive crackdown on undocumented migrants which started in 2002.

With Ilagan in this mission are Connie Bragas-Regalado of Migrante International and Atty. Clare Padilla of the National Union of People's Lawyers and Engender Rights.  read more »