DIWANG PINAY: Labanan ang Pang-aapi sa Ating mga Makabagong Bayani OPENS TONIGHT!

Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment- GABRIELA USA

invites you for an evening (or afternoon) of compelling theatre!

DIWANG PINAY 2013:
Labanan ang Pang-aapi sa Ating mga Makabagong Bayani

(Resist the Enslavement of Our Modern Heroes)

Diwang Pinay is a performance based on the true stories of four women who have survived labor trafficking. Like thousands of other overseas Filipino workers, landlessness, joblessness, contractualization and meager wages forced them to leave the Philippines to find work abroad.

Recruited through an employment agency, the women signed labor contracts with the promise of the American dream and an end to their hardships back home only to find themselves commodities in a labor export system and pawns in a labor trafficking scheme, which they struggle against and resist to this day.

This original production is a program of Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment (FiRE)-GABRIELA USA and is in support of the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns’ Stop Trafficking Our People campaign.

Friday, May 17th at 8pm
Saturday, May 18th at 8pm
Sunday, May 19th at 3pm

WOW Café Theatre

59-61 East 4^th Street, 4^th Floor, between Bowery and 2^nd Avenue, Manhattan

Tickets are going fast! Get your tickets now!

CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR TICKETS

Diwang Pinay, FiRE, & Florida 15 on the Radio

Candice (FiRE), Annabelle and Lester (Florida 15) at May Day 2013

Flaming Sword of Justice #51: Fire

http://www.flamingswordofjustice.com/episodes/51-fire

Listen to FiRE’s Cultural Director and director of Diwang Pinay, Candice Sering, discuss the upcoming theatrical performance and our organizing work on the progressive talk radio program The Flaming Sword of Justice with Ben Wikler. Featured is Annabelle Sibayan, Florida 15 labor trafficking survivor, who tells her first-hand account of the struggle to fight back. Hear about her experience now and see her story on stage this weekend!

Diwang Pinay, Labanan ang Pang-aapi sa Ating mga Makabagong Bayani opens tomorrow night May 17 at WOW Cafe Theater in Manhattan. We’re almost sold out! Buy your tickets here: http://diwangpinaynyc.brownpapertickets.com/

FiRE-GABRIELA USA Presents Theater Production on Filipina Labor Trafficking Survivors

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Reference: Jennine Ventura, Chairperson, Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment, fire.nyc@gmail.com

FiRE-GABRIELA USA Presents Theater Production on Filipina Labor Trafficking Survivors

May 6, 2013

New York, NY – Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment (FiRE)-GABRIELA USA is proud to announce its original theatre production, Diwang Pinay (Spirit of the Filipina), Labanan ang Pang-aapi sa Ating mga Makabagong Bayani (Resist the Enslavement of Our Modern Heroes) opening at the WOW Café Theatre (59-61 East 4^th Street, 4^th Floor, between Bowery and 2^nd Avenue, Manhattan) May 17-19, 2013.  Coming off the success of last December’s Diwang Pinay Sneak Peek, which commemorated the 10-year anniversary of the annual production, this year’s show will tackle the subject of labor trafficking and im/migrant experiences.

Diwang Pinay is a performance based on the true stories of four women who have survived labor trafficking.  Like thousands of other overseas Filipino workers, issues of landlessness, joblessness, contractualization and meager wages forced them to leave the Philippines in order to find work abroad.  Recruited through an employment agency, they signed labor contracts with the promise of the American Dream and an end to their hardships back home only to find themselves commodities in a labor export system and pawns in a labor trafficking scheme, which they struggle against and resist to this day.  This is the story of the women of the Florida 15, a case involving Filipino workers recruited by a Philippine-based employment agency to work in a Florida hotel.

The opening of Diwang Pinay coincides with the May 1^st launch of GABRIELA USA’s Campaign to Support Filipino Migrant Workers.  Through the Labor Export Policy of the Philippines, 4,500 Filipinos are leaving the Philippines daily—70% of whom are women—to seek employment opportunities abroad.  Overseas Filipino workers or OFWs are vulnerable to exploitation and many become victims of labor trafficking, forced to take 3-D jobs that are difficult, dirty, and dangerous.  The campaign hopes to uphold and defend worker’s rights for Filipina women, as well as shedding light on the destructive impacts of the Labor Export Policy, which keep Filipino migrant workers apart from their families.

“As a cultural worker and organizer I believe that Diwang Pinay is a direct response to make visible the stories and resilience of migrant workers who, despite government neglect, have and will always come together to protect the rights and welfare of Filipinos abroad,” said Candice Sering, Cultural Director of FiRE and director of  the Diwang Pinay production. “The situation of these four women is a reminder that the struggles and root causes perpetuated by U.S. imperialist policies has forced migrants out of their own countries.  We must put an end to this kind of economic violence oppressing our Filipino people,” says Irma Bajar GABRIELA USA, Vice-Chair of International Relations.  “The first step is through educating the broader community on issues like labor trafficking, and what better way to do so than through the drama and heart of the theater.”

Showtime on May 17^th & 18^th is 8pm, with a matinee at 3pm on the 19^th.  Advance tickets online (www.diwangpinaynyc.brownpapertickets.com) are $20.  Tickets at the door are $25.  Diwang Pinay has been generously supported by a grant from the Citizens Committee For New York City.

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Save the Date! See Diwang Pinay on May 17, 18, & 19

For more information on this year’s production of Diwang Pinay and updates on ticket sales, visit our blog: http://diwangpinaynyc.wordpress.com

For more information on Diwang Pinay as a cultural program of FiRE, check out Our Programs at the top of the homepage.

GABRIELA-USA Commemorates November 25th, the International Day of the Elimination of Violence Against Women

Reference: Valerie Francisco, Chairperson, GABRIELA-USA

Email: chair@gabusa.org

GABRIELA-USA Commemorates November 25th, the International Day of the Elimination of Violence Against Women

GABRIELA-USA, an alliance of organizations representing Filipino women across the U.S. commemorate November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (IDEVAW) by denouncing the attacks on Gaza by Israel that continues to kill women and children, and opposing the ongoing human rights violations and killings of our women in the Philippines.

GABRIELA-USA stands in solidarity with the Palestinian people to demand Israel to stop this ongoing massacre on the people of Gaza and to end the U.S.-backed occupations of both Gaza and the West Bank. For absolute peace, the U.S. must not interfere and keep out of the affairs of the Palestinian people and the Israeli state must give up its murderous Zionist path and respect the human rights and sovereignty of the Palestinian people.

During this time of a global economic crisis caused by U.S. imperialism, multi-national corporations are vultures competing for and hoarding natural resources throughout the globe, imposing their power through militarization. Air strikes and massacres happening thousands of miles apart between Gaza and Mindanao yet have something in common: U.S. military power and funding for the corrupt puppet regime of the Philippines and the U.S.’s closest ally in the middle east and #1 recipient of U.S. military aid, Israel; in turn, victimizing people all over the world in order to protect the interests of the global 1%.

GABRIELA-USA continues to support ManiLakbayan, a caravan and march that aims to raise the national consciousness around the deteriorating human rights situation in relation to large-scale mining, thus far raising over $1,100 in the last 2 weeks to help community delegates from Mindanao to launch this campaign in Manila. The October 18 massacre in the Philippines of two-months pregnant Juvy Capion and her young sons, Jorge and Janjan, aged 13 and 8 reflects the reality of daily violence faced by the B’laan tribe and other indigenous peoples throughout the Philippines for actively opposing large scale mining by foreign multinational corporations encroaching on ancestral lands. GABRIELA-USA condemns the killings of indigenous leaders and anti-mining activists in Mindanao, and we are continuing to reach out to our communities in the U.S. to support efforts in raising awareness of the recent events in Mindanao. GABRIELA-USA acknowledges that the system massacring women and children in Gaza is the same brutal system victimizing Filipina women globally.

“As Filipino women we hold people like President Benigno Aquino III and President Barrack Obama accountable for the culture and system of violence they perpetrate on women around the world. Hunger and poverty, joblessness and exploitation, evictions, forced migration, lack of housing and healthcare are all part of imperialist plunder and war on women and children” said Valerie Francisco, Chairperson for GABRIELA-USA, “We must rise up and fight for our basic human rights and demand to end violence against women.”

As these current atrocities continue to happen to our women, we are launching a petition letter to demand action from the Philippine government to stop these heinous acts of violence and stop the use of rape as a tool of war against the people. We call upon women across the globe to help us in our fight to end violence against women.

GABRIELA-USA supports people’s right to fight for their own self-determination against aggressive exploitation and oppression. From the U.S. to Palestine to the Philippines, on this day, we honor and support the fighting spirit of women throughout the world against violence towards women and children.

Women’s activists have marked November 25 as a day to fight violence against women since 1981. On December 17, 1999, the United Nations General Assembly designated November 25th as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women by Resolution 54/134. The date came from the brutal assassination in 1960 of the three Mirabal sisters, political activists in the Dominican Republic, on orders of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo.