Source: Philippine Statistical Authority, “Fact Sheet on Women and Men in the Philippines” from years 2010 to 20183 Third, even using only available sex-disaggregated quantitative data, women’s human rights advocates also cite the power of macro level numbers to level off the experience of different groups of women of gender (in)equality, as well the disparities of power arising among them to assert their rights. An understanding of the intersectionality of women’s identities makes it no longer acceptable to talk about women’s human rights in a unified or singular sense: women are not just their bodies and reproductive organs as represented by the statistical variable “female”, but they also have social identities – claimed or imposed on them by society – which locates them and determines their power relations with other people, including with their fellow women, and their environment. A national situationer which is based largely on gender (i.e. women in relation to men) statistics is form of de-contextualization because it puts illusory boundaries on what are “women’s (human rights) issues”. That is, there is a popular idea even among social activists that women’s issues are only those which overtly singles out, excludes or restricts women on the basis of their sex, whereas an intersectional approach recognizes that women’s issues include all forms of human rights violations that degrade the dignity and humanity of women. Discrimination and violence directed at women because they are women and are seen as secondary human beings is a woman’s issue; rising prices of basic goods and services due to taxes, inflation and deregulation are women’s daily economic issues; uncompensated overtime work, below minimum wages, trade union busting are women’s workers issues; land conversation, flooding of imported agricultural products in the market are women farmers’ issues; encroachment into ancestral domains through government approval of mining industries or militarization are IP women’s issues; the drug war and extra-judicial killings, “red-tagging”, fake news trolling, and shrinking spaces for dissent are women’s human rights defenders’ issues.4 Retrieved from https://psa.gov.ph/gender-stat/wmf on 03 January 2020 These are some of the women’s human rights issues presented as part of a Filipino women’s situationer in the SARILAYA women’s caucus. Leading the discussions are resource persons Atty. Virginia Lacsa Suarez of Kaisa Ka (“Kalagayan ng Kababaihang Pilipino sa Gitna ng Tiranikong Administrasyon”), Djoannalyn 3 4