A WOMEN’S group on Thursday criticized President Benigno Aquino III for comparing her mother, the late President Corazon Aquino, to Gabriela Silang, the first Filipino woman revolutionary leader.
Joan Mae Salvador, secretary general of the Gabriela National Alliance of Women, made the criticism following the women’s month celebration of women entrepreneurs at the Technical Education, Skills and Development Authority in Pasay City.
She said the comparison was not only an insult to their group, which is named after Silang, wife of the Ilocano revolutionary leader Diego Silang, but also to the heroine herself.
She called on women to call for Aquino’s resignation for his failure to look after the welfare of women.
“Only someone so out of touch with reality and desperate to raise his plummeting popularity rating could think of something as incredible as likening his mother to Gabriela Silang,” Salvador said in a statement.
“The difference between Gabriela and Cory Aquino is as wide as the Pacific Ocean. Cory Aquino may have succeeded in taking up the fight of her husband Ninoy [Benigno Aquino Jr.], but it was never a fight against foreign domination. Cory in fact continued the centuries-old subservience to US economic and political interests, something which his son Noynoy is carrying on up to this very day.”
Aquino met with Tesda’s women entrepreneurs at the Tesda-Coke Sari-sari Store Training and Access to Resources program, comparing her mother to Gabriela who, like her husband, fought the Spaniards.
“Other portions of Aquino’s speech on women’s empowerment also sent eyebrows raising and heads shaking in disbelief,” Salvador said.
“In his speech, Aquino lauded Tesda’s Coke STAR Program as empowering to women by being able to earn while also taking care of household chores. He also said that the program provides women with the opportunity to contribute in community development as well as in advancing the country’s economic development.”
Salvador said Aquino’s speech only showed his ignorance of the real predicament of women workers, particularly in the informal sector, due to the failure of the government to provide job opportunities and viable livelihood programs to women.
“Aquino also practically stamped his support to keep women enslaved to housework and heap upon them the burden of unpaid family work rather than upholding the state’s responsibility to provide social support to women and their families,” Salvador said.
“In one fell swoop, Aquino showed his utter disregard of the plight of women and his responsibility as President to work towards women’s empowerment.”
Gabriela party-list Rep. Emmi de Jesus said Gabriela Silang could not in any way be compared to Corazon Aquino.
“Gabriela fought hard against Spanish colonization while Cory supported a new treaty to put up a US military base in 1991,” she said.