Date of Award

Spring 2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of arts (BA)

Department

Global Honors

First Advisor

Tabitha Espina

Abstract

Filipino women make up half of Philippine society, and throughout Philippine history, their experiences have been significant in revealing and evaluating oppressive social structures in the Philippines. Militant Filipino women have been at the forefront of social and political movements. The history and influence of the women-led militant revolutionary group MAKIBAKA combat the gender and class structures of Philippine society identified by the National Democratic movement as the three fundamental problems of Filipino society: U.S. imperialism, bureaucratic capitalism, feudalism, as well as a fourth problem identified by the founder of MAKIBAKA Lorena Barros as a male authority. MAKIBAKA emerged from the growing political consciousness during the 1970s, known as the First Quarter Storm, but had been deemed an illegal organization by the Philippine government and forced underground. Thus, there needs to be more academic discourse about MAKIBAKA, resulting in a majority of the focus on aboveground struggles and organizations and making any contemporary connections challenging.

Nevertheless, MAKIBAKA contributes to the ongoing Philippine revolutionary history, to conversations about the role of Filipinas in their gender and labor struggles within the semi-colonial and semi-feudal Philippine society from Martial Law to today, and to contemporary resistance movements. This analysis of the 1) intersectional experiences of gender, class, and ethnicity within MAKIBAKA and 2) its development of tactics from grassroots organizing to direct action and advocacy will show MAKIBAKA's contributions to the ongoing revolutionary history of the Philippines and how their strategies of militant resistance to multiple points of oppression have lasting impact and influence on other legal traditional organizations. Studying the societal influence MAKIBAKA has on the Philippines reframes Filipino women through a de-colonial and de-imperial frame, deconstructing harmful frameworks and portrayals of Filipinas as submissive, exotic, sexualized, and commodified labor and instead amplifying the voices and strength of militant Filipino women in their ongoing quest for the total liberation of all Filipino people.

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