“The ‘Bantay Bastos’ FB page initially aims to provide a platform where women can report derogatory remarks made by men, particularly government officials.”
We are observing the annual 18-Day Campaign Against Violence Against Women from Nov. 25 to Dec. 12. The global campaign started as 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence in 1991, which culminated during Dec. 10, International Human Rights Day. Now the yearly campaign ends on International Day Against Trafficking.
The women of Bacolod and Negros Occidental, were probably the first in the country to observe the international campaign long before the the Philippine government joined the campaign in 2002, and extended it to 18 days through Proclamation No. 1172, series of 2006.
We, in the Bacolod Task Force on Women, convened by then Councilor Luzviminda “Joy” Valdez, who eventually became vice mayor and mayor, started the campaign in 1993 upon reading about it in the Women’s Tribune Center newsletter from New York.
During our first 16 Days, a focused group discussion conducted among task force members and women from selected barangays validated that domestic violence was rampant and victims did not get appropriate help. When battered women reported to authorities, they were just told to go back home since it was “part of married life”.
The women said that they wanted a place where they can seek help. Thus, the FGD results were used to lobby for a project and on Jan. 18, 1995, the Bacolod Women’s Center, the first in Negros Occidental, was inaugurated.
Back then, the government had no program for VAW yet, and the DAWN Foundation staff became volunteers of the Women Center, together with Gina Ferrer-Castro, the social worker of the Department of Social Services and Development. We were trained by the Women’s Crisis Center and the Women’s Legal Bureau.
During the succeeding years, the Task Force, which became the Bacolod Consortium of Women’s Organizations, observed the 16 Days by pasting handmade and photocopied posters in the downtown area, tied violet ribbons on trees, held marches and speak outs.
Eventually, with the Provincial Council for Women, we conducted fora and signature campaigns for the passage of laws for women.
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In 2018, there was an “outbreak of sexism in all levels of government” that many attributed to the start of the Duterte administration. EveryWoman, a coalition of women’s organizations and individual women leaders united in asserting and defending Filipino women’s human dignity and rights, as well as protecting democratic space, created a Facebook page called “Bantay Bastos”.
The initial purpose of “Bantay Bastos” FB page was to be a space where women can report derogatory remarks made by men, particularly government officials.
In 2019, “Bawal Bastos” Law or the Safe Spaces Act was enacted which penalizes catcalling, wolfwhistling, misogynistic and homophobic slurs, unwanted sexual advances, and other forms of sexual harassment in public places, workplaces, schools, as well as in online spaces. Since then, the “Bantay Bastos” page (https://www.facebook.com/bantaybastos) has evolved and expanded its purpose and became a venue, where people report misogynistic and sexist comments and posts, to reports of online and offline sexual harassment of varying degrees. – NWI
