GABNET CELEBRATES ITS 20TH YEAR OF EXISTENCE & PREPARES FOR NEW PHASE OF WORK IN THE US

On Labor Day 1989, GabNet, the largest and oldest militant Filipina women's organization is the United States, was born in response to the continued presence of US military bases in the Philippines including the Clark Air Force and Subic Bay Navy bases. A group of concerned women came together in Chicago and began a 20-year journey toward understanding and opposing women's oppression and supporting the emancipation, struggle and liberation of women of the Philippines.

For 20 years, GabNet has been at the forefront of exposing and opposing the evil impact of US-led imperialism on Philippine women -- from trafficking, denial of reproductive rights, political repression, labor export, etc.

For 20 years, GabNet has been at the forefront of exposing and opposing the evil impact of feudalism on Philippine women -- from landgrabbing to sexual slavery and prostitution, to demolition of houses to non-recognition of women peasants to political repression in the countryside.

For 20 years, GABNet has been at the forefront of exposing and opposing the evil impact of Philippine bureaucrat capitalism on Philippine women -- to the extent of defying the paranoia unleashed by the Macapagal-Arroyo government in the case of the GabNet Three.

Gabnet launched the international Purple Rose Campaign against the trafficking of Filipina women and children, was instrumental in the passage of the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act, marched against the World Trade Organization in Seattle, held nationally-coordinated actions to overturn Proclamation 1017, continued to organize in the face of the Patriot Act, took to the streets when the US invaded Iraq, Palestine, and the Philippines, conducted a Seeking Answers legal mission to bring international attention to the political repression in the Philippines, and held militant vigil until their members, the Gabnet 3, were allowed to return to the US.

As it faces its third decade, GabNet is transforming itself by expanding its concerns. While it focuses on the burgeoning community of Americans of Philippine ancestry, it will focus as well on women who defend women on a global stage. It will continue to inform and educate on the impact of global and U.S. policy decisions on women; organize and empower women, cultivate Filipina women’s leadership, and articulate the women’s perspective. It will continue to deepen its understanding of the theory and practice of women's emancipation, struggle and liberation.

Tens of thousands of women in the US learned from GabNet and carried the values of militant feminism and progressive sisterhood in the past 20 years. We look forward to teaching, working and learning with tens of thousands more, toward the completion of the journey that our parents and grandparents undertook, in search of a home and a nation. Wherever one's work has value, meaning and impact, that is the home of one's struggle, the site of one's nation-building.

Join us in commemorating 20 fierce years of resistance, struggle and transformation at the Gabnet Anniversary celebration on Saturday, October 10th, 2009 from 6-9pm at the Joan Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice on the University of San Diego campus. Join us in preparing for the next twenty years!