Monthly Archives: August 2019

Announcements

UPCWGS Extramural Program: Call for Participants

[NOTE: The extramural on Gender Responsive Planning and Budgeting is rescheduled from 16-20 September 2019 to 25-29 November 2019.]

The University of the Philippines Center for Women’s and Gender Studies (UPCWGS), in partnership with the UP Center for Women’s Studies Foundation, Inc. (UPCWSFI), is organizing an extramural on Gender Responsive Planning and Budgeting, exclusive for Local Government Units (LGUs), on 16-20 September 2019 at UP Diliman, Quezon City.

Training fee is P12,500.00, inclusive of food, materials, kit, and certificate. Reply slip must be accomplished on or before September 13.

Reply slip can be accessed here: http://bit.ly/GRPBReplySlip-Sept

An Official Confirmation Letter will be sent upon successful receipt of the Reply Slip. Should there be questions or concerns, please feel free to get in touch with Vince Hermoso of the UPCWGS Training, Outreach, and Extension Program at (+632) 9206950, (+632) 9818500 VoIP 4226, 09358185499, or 09612595082.

Announcements

Conversations through Art with Maria Reimondez

The University of the Philippines Center for Women’s and Gender Studies (UPCWGS), together with the Youth, Adult Survivors, and Kin in Need (YAKIN), and the UP College of Fine Arts (CFA), will be hosting Maria Reimondez for the second part of the discussion series entitled, “Conversations through Art: Tapping Various Creative Modalities for Intervention, Growth, and Transformation,” on 9 September 2019 (Monday), 2:00 PM at the UPCWGS Conference Room.

Ms. Reimondez is a feminist Galician writer, translator, and activist, whose body of work includes poetry and novels for adults, children, and young adults. Through her works, she carves spaces for conversations around the intersections of gender, language, sexual orientation, ethnicity/race, coloniality, poverty, ability, and celebrate polyphonic feminist spaces across frontiers.

Conversations through Art is an initiative by artists, advocacy builders, social workers, and those in the helping professions to collectively promote arts for social change. Envisioned as a series wherein various creative modalities are highlighted in each session, the invited resource speakers will be individuals from different parts of the world who are making contributions to the establishment of the expressive arts practice or use specific creative modalities for personal-professional, community, and sectoral development.

Statements

STATEMENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES SYSTEM GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT (GAD) COMMITTEE AND OFFICES OF ANTI-SEXUAL HARASSMENT ON THE POSSIBLE RELEASE FROM PRISON OF EX-CALAUAN MAYOR ANTONIO L. SANCHEZ

The University of the Philippines System Gender and Development (GAD) Committee and Offices of Anti-Sexual Harassment condemn in the strongest terms the possible release from prison of convicted rapist and murderer, ex-Calauan Mayor Antonio L. Sanchez. We are outraged that the perpetrator of crimes so heinous they were described by presiding Judge Harriet Demetriou as a “plot seemingly hatched in hell,” will benefit from the retroactive application of R.A. 10592, which increases the time allowances for good conduct among prisoners resulting in the reduction of their jail sentences.

In 1995, Pasig RTC Judge Demetriou found Sanchez and six of his men guilty in the 1993 rape-murder of Eileen Sarmenta, and the murder of Allan Gomez, both of whom were UP students. The sentence imposed was seven terms of reclusion perpetua and P11.3 million in damages for the students’ families. This decision was affirmed by the Supreme Court in 1999.

We demand proof of “good conduct” for any consideration for his release. In 2010, it came to public attention that Sanchez was caught with P1.5 million worth of shabu inside a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in his cell at the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa, and is allegedly involved in the drug trade in Muntinlupa.

We recognize the potential of R.A. 10592 to benefit political prisoners and low-income individuals who have been unjustly incarcerated due to lack of access to adequate legal representation. The crimes committed by Sanchez are so heinous that he should not qualify for any release. Seeing him walk free gravely defiles our ideals of justice.

Current Philippine conditions have shown how lives have become expendable through extrajudicial killings and how women are dehumanized by persistent attacks that legitimize misogyny and sexism. The release of Sanchez from prison will further reinforce the cheapening of human lives. 

We vehemently oppose any release for Sanchez from the New Bilibid Prison and demand that he serves his full sentence. 

Events

UPCWGS conducts Seminar-Workshop on Gender-Responsive Planning and Budgeting

As part of its Extramural Program, the University of the Philippines Center for Women’s and Gender Studies (UPCWGS), together with the UP Center for Women’s Studies Foundation, Inc. (UPCWSFI), conducted Are We Gender-Responsive Enough? Making the GAD Plan Work: A Seminar-Workshop on Gender-Responsive Planning and Budgeting on 13-17 August 2019 at the Institute for Small-Scale Industries (ISSI), UP Diliman. Resource persons were Dr. Excelsa C. Tongson, Deputy Director for Training, Outreach, and Extension of the UPCWGS; Dr. Carolyn I. Sobritchea, former Director of the UPCWGS; and Gichelle A. Cruz, member of the Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) Gender Resource Pool.

The seminar-workshop aims to capacitate and enhance the skills of the participants in preparing the Gender and Development (GAD) Plan and Budget Report (PB) and the GAD Accomplishment Report (AR) that all government offices are mandated to submit yearly to the PCW, the Commission on Audit (COA), and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM). An orientation in crafting the GAD Agenda, which “shall be the basis for the annual formulation of programs, activities and projects (PAPs) to be included in the GPBs of agencies,” was also included.

Dr. Excelsa C. Tongson (top row, second from right) of the UPCWGS, Dr. Carolyn I. Sobritchea (second row, eighth from right), and Gichelle A. Cruz (second row, seventh from right) with the UPCWGS Secretariat and the participants of Are We Gender-Responsive Enough? Making the GAD Plan Work: A Seminar-Workshop on Gender-Responsive Planning and Budgeting on August 17 at ISSI, UP Diliman

[With a report from Fernand Vincent M. Hermoso]