This project is being implemented by the Philippine Educational Theatre Association Women’s Theater Program (PETA-WTP).

The Project has four major components:

1. A 75 minute "informance" (information given in a performance) play on the issue of violence against women in the family to be toured in 24 communities all over the Philippines;
2. A workshop after each performance to debrief the audience about the play, deepening their understanding of the issue, and providing ideas on actions and strategies that could be used by the local community to address the issue of VAW in the family;
3. The formation of women's human rights action team with responsibility for implementing actions in the local community to address VAW in the family; and
4. Publication of a Book of Strategies that will relate the project experience and review the actions taken by the various communities covered by the tour.
   The project was launched last November 25, 1998 and will finished in December of 1999.

Earlier this year, we received a note from Lea Espallardo, of Philippine Educational Theatre Association (PETA) about her experience in implementing the PETA project:

“Our schedules have never been so busy, and I have never worked so hard. We are now on our national tour. Last Monday, the audience was a poor urban community in Malabon (the National Capital Region), and hours ago we gave another performance to an audience of children and youths at the Children and Youth Theatre Festival. On Sunday, we will perform in Caloocan, another poor urban community.

Our original idea was to show to an audience of at least 100 people in community multi-purpose halls. However, to our surprise, performance venues for the shows have been so varied: a University hall, a public park, a market place, a gymnasium, even the Fort Santiago ruins and basketball courts. Most of our Mindanao performances are in gymnasia that can accommodate 2-4,000 people. This really presents a challenge to our lighting and sound technicians.

Requests for performances are so overwhelming that we cannot accommodate any more. We have even had to turn down some communities. One organization approached us to do school tours in the northern Philippines, but we had to put the offer aside until all the twenty shows under the UNIFEM project are finished. Our 1999 schedule is:

January 24 : Metro Manila (Urban Poor Community)
January 26 : St. Scholastica's College (an all-girls school in Manila)
February 17-24: Mindanao (six shows in five provinces)
March 4-12 : Luzon (four shows)
April 5-15 : Visayas (four shows)
May 5-15 : Cordillera Region (three shows)

We are all very happy with this production. All of the cast and staff involved are so proud of this work. As the stories of the play unfold, so our own stories unfold. What we are presenting is related to our own lives, so the experience has become very personal. Thus, the stories unfold at three levels: that of the play itself; that of the actors, the staff and the artistic team involved; and that of the audience.

One nice story emerged from our performance in La Union last November. After weeks of performances in the area, a community organizer told us that one woman who had watched the play reported that she had followed the advice from one of the scenes and said “no” to husband in bed when she did not feel like sex. It seems that the next day she was given "breakfast in bed" by her husband, and she was so proud that she had been able to express her own wishes. Of course, the husband’s response may not always be the same, but it's good to hear such stories.

One community in Cordillera is also doing a satellite informance tour in the Cordillera region which we helped to organize. So, while we are touring nationwide, this small indigenous community-based women's group is also touring a mini-informance on VAW in the Cordillera region. They focus more on VAW issues in the various indigenous communities of the region.
As an actor in the play, I realized that performing is not just a matter of being an actor or artist. It also involves being a woman who has to face so many complications in her own life. I just wish you were also here to share this noble experience with us. Such learnings are so overwhelming and I can't find time to write everything. I am too tired to sit and write. I have the luxury of writing now only because I am so relieved that we have just finished with one show today.”

A few weeks later, Lea also sent us this short article written by Liza C. Magtoto. who is the scriptwriter (and one of the actors) of “Tumawag Kay Libby Manaoag.” She is also a senior member of PETA and a freelance scriptwriter for TV, stage, video and film..

Don’t stop if you’ve heard these or similar stories.

Bella married young because she got pregnant. Even although she was beaten black and blue and raped by her husband, she refused to leave him because of her love for him.

Dolor is a middle class homemaker. Her strict husband prevents her from pursuing her ambition of becoming a doctor.

Nina was sexually abused by her step-father. She ran away from home.

All found refuge in a radio program hosted by Libby Manaoag. Libby Manaoag doesn’t really exist. She is a fictional character whose fictional radio programme digs into real-life problems of typical women. Her callers are mostly women who throw in their conservative views or voice their rage about such everyday problems. On Libby’s show, experts also provide analysis and advice on how women can protect themselves against domestic violence.

When Libby plays the music, three women commentators suddenly break into mambo, tango or singing. They don’t just to entertain or give cheek, but offer insightful comments on the predicaments of Libby’s women callers.

Thus, goes “Tumawag Kay Libby Manaoag [Advice from Libby Manaoag]” – an informance by the Women’s Theater Program of the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA). In coordination with the Women’s Crisis Center and through assistance from UNIFEM, PETA is touring this informance in communities in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. (If your dictionary is unhelpful, “informance” comes from inform + performance. It is a performance meant to inform - a new term for a new need.)

Are the women in the audience happy to see their lives reflected onstage, or do they quietly slip away in deference to their husbands? There is no single answer.

In La Union, some men in the audience walked out of the show in the gym. We thought that they were offended because men were often portrayed as villains. But we were told that the men actually left in tears. We hope they were tears of guilt and remorse.

In Malabon we were greeted by the smell of fish sauce and a sign at the main gate which read “Paradise Village.” Winding our way down wet and narrow streets, we arrived at the performance venue. Our “theatre” was an open-air multi-purpose community plaza more often used for basketball games, pasayaw (dance parties) and street fights. Director Maribel Legarda commented on the small size of the stage: “Perhaps four tombstones combined.”

While waiting to rehearse at mid-day, I observed our potential audience. The women already looked weary from the day’s work. The stage was surrounded by houses. As the show started, I noticed some of the audience still doing their chores at home. Some were perched at their windows, others just listened while continuing their work.
Thinking about how the informance might mirror their own lives, I wondered if the show would be a treat for them, or whether it might wear them down even more.

There were men in the audience, mostly young. I pondered their reaction to the scenes depicting the flimsy rationalizations of abusive men for their behaviour. I imagined some wanting to hurl tomatoes or some other vegetable from the nearby market stalls of the at us. However, no such real-life dramas eventuated.

As Bella lamented her condition, women in the audience commented, “There are plenty of targets here [meaning many men who abuse women]!” Others called to their friends “Fetch our women! They need to watch this!” Some approached staff from the Women’s Crisis Centre to ask what they could do to stop young men from abusing children.

The informance is accompanied by a workshop or a feedback session for the women in an open forum. In Novaliches, our sixth show, actors and audience sat around in a circle to discuss the performance. One woman tearfully told us how she identified with Bella. Unlike Bella, she had already reported her live-in partner’s violent actions to the baranggay authorities. But then her lover (what a misnomer!) threatened her life.

Younger women asked how to advise a neighbour who was raped by her boyfriend. One could sense distress in their eyes and a resolve to stop the violence from recurring.

A street-wise mother related how she disregarded accusations of “meddler” when she reports abuses in other homes to the baranggay. She was a battered wife herself. Once, she told her husband: “You are so fond of going around even thought you don’t have a penny in your pocket. I’m the one eating nothing but salt and still you have the gall to hit me! If only I could pawn your manhood!”

Another outspoken woman was a leader of a group in the Women’s Crisis Centre network. The group holds seminars on how to deal with domestic violence. The informance reassured her that they were on the right track. “Your drama has given us new confidence/” she told us. It was inspiring to hear that. But what was really inspiring was the courage of the women.

The women from Novaliches lived in Bagong Silang [New Life]. How fitting. Here is a place where women are experiencing a rebirth, asserting their rights and creating change for the better.

As PETA tours the informance to more provinces and cities, perhaps more women will share or at least reflect on their stories. Perhaps it will also create space for their rebirth, a way to find a voice and to journey toward an end to violence against women in the home.

PETA's contact details are in our VAW Campaign directory.

Dated: 9May1999