Future strategic goals and objectives
The draft report on the national situation of Philippine women (NCRFW 1994:23) included in its "Women Ten Point Political Agenda" two provisions that are of particular relevance to women in the rural areas. One pertains to the environment, the other to agriculture.
Environment. Adopt environmental reconstruction programs to generate sustainable development in terms of the creation of economic activities for women. Stop environmental destruction which specifically affects women as providers of food, water, and fuel, through total log ban, garbage recycling, and prevention of air and water pollution.
Agriculture. Enact laws to recognize rural women as farmers and fisher-folk and ensure the right of women peasants and agricultural workers to own land and access to support services.
The NCRFW report also contains a set of future strategic goals and objectives, some of which are relevant to women in rural areas. This subset is presented in Annex B of the present report. The strategies included:
1. Conduct leadership and assertiveness training, and disseminate information on women's rights and the like;
2. Organize women or activate women's organizations;
3. Review policies or instructional/training materials;
4. Increase land ownership rights among women;
5. Provide basic services to all barangays;
6. Protect Filipino producers, industries, and markets;
7. Increase productivity and income from subcontracting industry and from agriculture;
8. Provide primary importance on food security over export-oriented cash-crop production;
9. Ensure the conservation of prime agricultural lands and stopping discriminate land conversion through women power; and,
10. Facilitate local employment and increasing access to employment opportunities and job alternatives.
These strategies are echoed by the rural women interviewed in March 1994. Their issues, however, were more pointed, and their strategies more immediate (Annex C). Among their strategies were:
1. Putting up a small factory in the barangay as an alternative to individual home-based work;
2. Increasing capitalization for term trading:
3. Increasing the scale of funding or assistance for women;
4. Initiating gender and poverty-responsive training programs;
5. Promoting diversification of crops without jeopardizing food supply;
6. Organizing women farmers into a producers' union to enable them to negotiate for better prices and terms with traders;
7. Obtaining two-way radios (communication equipment) which would help women (and men) farmers to monitor prices and locate the best buyers for their products;
8. Making technicians more aware that women farmers need technical assistance beyond the stereotyped home-management and backyard-garden technologies;
9. Promoting awareness among women of their rights as individuals, farmers, and workers, and involving men in the discussion of women's (and men's) roles, rights, and duties;
10. Monitoring compliance to wage laws pertinent to plantations;
11. Promoting land sharing between plantation owners and workers;
12. Generating alternative livelihood to fishing and/or diversifying fishing equipment to enable households to fish at different times of the year;
13. Arresting further resource depletion by enforcing existing laws and disseminating technical information about environment-friendly fishing technologies;
14. Involving women in training and application of resource-enhancing technologies;
15. Planting of fast-maturing trees that could be harvested;
16. Mobilizing women to demand for roads, transportation facilities, and basic services like potable water;
17. Promoting the organization of women's groups in Agrarian Reform Communities (ARCS);
18. Promoting the involvement of women in cooperatives at all levels;
19. Naming of women in ownership or land-control documents; and,
20. Promoting FAITH ("food always in the home") and similar schemes to secure the food supply of the household.
The rural women's set of strategies, along with the more general NCRFW strategic plans, seem to define the future, according to the women most involved in agriculture and other primary producing sectors. The struggle for access to resources, the need for protection from exploitation, and the desire for the improvement of self, family and community, reverberate in the plan of action for women in agriculture.
