MABALACAT CITY -- Women have to do more than the usual and go to great lengths to augment the family income in times of crisis, including drought.
This was according to Cathy Estavillo, National Federation of Peasant Women (Amihan) secretary general.
“Women suffer from additional burden especially in times of calamities and crisis such as drought, as they are expected to attend to the everyday needs of the family with only a very limited income,” Estavillo said, describing the daily experiences of the women sector.
Estabillo said farmers' incomes are not enough to meet the needs of their families.
“They only earn P150 per day as seasonal farmworkers while 2.5 kilo of rice cost P120 or P48 per kilo which is just enough for a day. Thus, peasant families turn to cassava, vegetables and wild yam, a poisonous root crop for food,” she added.
Upland farmers are limited to only one cropping season of palay and they only get an average of six cavans of palay every harvest time, according to Estabillo.
Poor families depend on their banana plants and other fruit bearing trees such as mango, cashew and avocado for the second cropping until the summer season (December-May).
Farmers also experience lower yield and low quality of crops due to El Niño, Estavillo said.
“Bilang dagdag na pagkakakitaan, lumuluwas ang mga anak na babae para magtrabaho bilang kasambahay. Ang ibang pamilya ay kumikita sa pamumulot ng mga puting bato (pebbles) na nagkakahalaga ng P40 kada balde,” she added.
(As an extra income, the daughters in the family goes outside of the province to work as a housemaid. Other families earn by collecting white pebbles and sell them for P40 per container.)
With this, farmers are forced into borrowing money with a 70 percent interest, Estabillo said.
“If they borrow P500 they will pay it back with one cavan of palay (P850 at P17 per kilo of palay).”
Peasant women from the community shared that the distress and anxiety caused by poverty and lack of regular source of income results to arguments between husband and wife, she added.
Estavillo said the prolonged drought also cause women longer hours of household work as the sources of water like spring and deep well dry up.
“They take longer hours in laundry as they need to search for source of water. Hygiene and sanitation is also affected resulting to various diseases including sore eyes, mumps, chicken pox, rashes and malaria,” Estabillo said.
“The absence of health center in the community and lack of agricultural assistance from the government makes their situation worse,” Estabillo said.