TUCP commends actress Ai-Ai de las Alas for coming out

By TUCP
May 22, 2013

QUEZON CITY – The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) commends showbiz actress Ai-Ai de las Alas for coming out in public with her ordeal in the hands of her husband amid growing trend showing more women with the same situation prefer to keep silent.

“She is one brave woman. Ai-Ai’s courageous act of coming out in the public and narrate her ordeal will embolden other Filipinas with the same fate but are poor and who felt powerless to come out in the open and confront a growing social problem,” said Gerard Seno, TUCP general secretary.

Records by TUCP’s affiliate Associated Labor Unions’ National Committee on Women collated in November last year showed 12,948 Violence Against Women (VAW) cases were recorded by the Women and Children Protection Center (WCPC) of the Philippine National Police, 69.7 per cent of which were violations of the anti-Violence Against Children and Women law.

“Eight years after the Republic Act 9262 or Anti-Violence Against Women and their Children (VAWC) law was passed, violence against women continues to persist as one of the country’s pervasive social problems,” said Sis. Eva Arcos, ALU Vice President and general secretary of its national committee on women.

Reported cases under RA 9262 increased from 218 in 2004 to 9,974 cases in 2010. Similarly, VAW cases in all categories (including rape, physical injuries, sexual harassment, etc) increased an average of 26.9 percent annually from 2006 to 2010. The biggest annual increase (59.2 percent) was recorded in 2010 with 15,104 cases, compared with 9,485 cases in 2009.

“The data is very alarming”, said Sis. Eva Arcos, General Secretary of the Associated Labor Unions National Committee on Women (ANCW). “The figures are not even conclusive as they are based only from what were reported to the PNP. There should be a system to consolidate VAW information from all sources, and to disseminate such for proper appreciation and intervention.”

According to Arcos, many VAW victims still chose to keep their experiences to themselves “to protect the family from shame”. She noted that even the National Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) conducted by the National Statistics Office (NSO) has recognized that a greater challenge now is the lack of concrete information on the extent of VAW in the country as many of these cases go unreported.