GABRIELA: Don’t be fooled by ‘Noynoying’

GABRIELA: Don’t be fooled by ‘Noynoying’

By Dyan Ruiz

Gertrudes Libang, Deputy Secretary General of GABRIELA. PHOTO: JOSEPH SMOOKE

This week a prominent leader in the women’s mass movement in the Philippines unmasked the policies of the President Benigno Aquino Jr. administration at a discussion group in Toronto.

The Deputy Secretary General of the largest women’s mass movement organization in the Philippines, GABRIELA, spoke to a small group at OISE at University of Toronto on Sept. 8. Gertrudes Libang spoke and responded to questions about the struggles of the Filipino people in the current administration of President “Noy Noy” Aquino.

“One of the things we really need to do is unmask him,” said Libang in the question period, “because he still has a good image among many people.”

While international attention was raised through the “Noynoying” phenomenon, Libang said that “Noynoying” actually implies the opposite of what is true when it comes to his administration.

Hundreds of instances of “Noynoying” occurred in the Spring when young people across the Philippines and the Diaspora posed at rallies and posted photos of themselves lounging around. The name and the act of looking bored, relaxed or idle refers to the perceived inaction of the President in preventing issues such as the spike in tuition rates and oil prices.

“’Noynoying’ makes it seem like he doesn’t care. But that is one of the masks. It’s not that he doesn’t care because in reality he’s continuing what his other predecessors have done,” Libang said. She continued to say “it isn’t like the President is not doing anything,” he’s actively promoting and expediting the same policies of past administrations.

The presidential spokesperson for the Aquino administration Edwin Lacierda said in Oct. 2011, “There is no political prisoners” in the Philippines, echoing President Ferdinand Marcos’s statement during Martial Law, “We have no political prisoners.”

Libang said that political dissidents are charged with criminal offences, which is why the state does not see them as political prisoners.

Aquino is fast-tracking a bill to corporatize 26 public hospitals in the Philippines under the euphemism of the Universal Health Care Program. Health care organizations have said this will increase the costs of medical care and this continues the push for privatization by past administrations such as President Joseph Estrada’s and Fidel Ramos’s.

The Aquino administration is now implementing a two-tiered minimum wage in the Tagalog region and later the National Capital Region (NCR), which allows employers to pay less than the minimum wage. In the NCR, the minimum wage is approximately PHP450 (about CAD10.58) per day. The employers would pay the floor wage instead of the minimum and any wages more than that is based on the workers’ productivity.

GABRIELA promotes the rights and welfare of women, children and marginalized communities through education, community mobilization, health care training and through their three elected representatives to the Philippine Congress under the GABRIELA party list.

Libang was in Canada to attend the CIVICUS World Assembly, a gathering of World leaders of citizen action in Montreal.

*With files from Bulatlat.com

AUDIENCE at OISE PHOTO: JOSEPH SMOOKE