Women Leaders Stage Flash Action at ICI HQ to Demand Transparency and Accountability

TAGUIG CITY, Philippines – On the morning of October 17, International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, grassroots feminist leaders held a surprise flash action outside the Independent Commission on Infrastructure (ICI) headquarters in Bonifacio Global City, calling for full transparency and accountability in the commission’s hearings and processes.

Donning purple shirts and white ribbon armbands, members of the World March of Women (WMW) – Pilipinas stood one by one before the ICI gates, raising placards that echoed their central demand: an end to systemic corruption and political patronage that deepen poverty and inequality, particularly among women and marginalized communities.

“Systemic corruption, propped up by political dynasties and padrino politics, aggravate the impoverishment of people, especially women,” said Jean Enriquez, Executive Director of Coalition Against Trafficking in Women – Asia Pacific (CATW-AP) and WMW-Pilipinas Coordinator. “Women carry the heavier burden of unpaid or underpaid labor while fulfilling care roles that the state fails to support.”

Echoing these concerns, Amparo Miciano, National Coordinator of the Pambansang Koalisyon ng Kababaihan sa Kanayunan (PKKK), linked corruption to the deepening struggles of rural women. “Historically disadvantaged in political and socio-economic life, rural women suffer the impact of corruption more acutely. It robs them of access to services that are already scarce,” Miciano emphasized.

For Joanna Bernice Coronacion of SENTRO-Women, corruption is a direct assault on people’s lives: “Every peso stolen from the public purse is a meal taken from a child, a roof taken from a mother, and a medicine withheld from the sick. Women across the nation rise to say: Enough! Public service must serve the public.”

Ana Maria Nemenzo, National Coordinator of WomanHealth Philippines, underscored that corruption not only erodes institutions but also costs lives. “Corruption kills,” she said, citing the misuse of flood control and health funds such as the ₱89.9 billion PhilHealth scandal. “We demand the return of stolen funds and accountability from all those responsible.”

Speaking on behalf of the Foundation for Media Alternatives (FMA), a WMW-Pilipinas member organization, the group stressed the need for open data, public access to information, and participatory governance. “Transparency is not optional. It’s a right. Communities, especially poor and marginalized women, bear the weight of climate disasters and government neglect. People have the right to know and to be heard,” FMA stated.

The women leaders vowed to continue their protest actions until public funds are recovered, assets confiscated to compensate flood victims, and sustainable flood solutions implemented. They further demanded that officials implicated in corruption scandals – across party lines – be investigated and, if guilty, jailed.

“We will not accept a government that feeds on the very people it should protect. We demand a government that serves, not steals,” said Coronacion.

The flash action was joined by organizations under WMW-Pilipinas, including Bagong Kamalayan Prostitution Survivors, Center for Migrant Advocacy (CMA), LILAK (Purple Action for Indigenous Women’s Rights), Women’s Legal and Human Rights Bureau (WLB), Youth and Students Advancing Gender Equality (YSAGE), and others.

As the demonstration concluded, the women reiterated their collective message: Justice, transparency, and accountability are not requests – they are rights.