The Gabriela National Alliance of Women on Friday denounced the country’s hosting of the Miss Universe pageant next month, saying it is being used to cover up important issues.
Gabriela called the pageant “an expensive exercise to lull the people and the international audience into a false sense of wellbeing and celebration” amid extrajudicial killings and unfair trade relations faced by the Philippines.
In a statement, Joms Salvador, secretary general of Gabriela, said that it is saddening that the Department of Tourism, a government agency, tapped the privately-run event to package the country as a “lurid tourist destination for cheap, easily exploitable women.”
“Sex tourism with human trafficking is one of the deplorable downstream trades that afflicts poor countries that host international events such as major beauty pageants,” she said.
Gabriela has in the past opposed pageants and other festivals that exploit women as these are “tools to commodify women” and use competitions to publicize the “commercial use of women’s image” in products and services.
Salvador said that women will continue to protest against deceptive pageants and push for real agenda of peace and justice.
She also added that women should demand the government focus on the increasing problems of the country, such as joblessness, rising prices of fuel and electricity and rampant killings by Oplans Bayanihan and Tokhang. RAM/rga
RELATED STORIES