Foot and Fire

Message on Women’s Month By Atty. Gerlie M. Uy PNP La Carlota City Flag Ceremony March 22, 2021 To our PNP Chief of Police, PLt Col. Jonel Vargas Guadalupe, and the uniformed women and men of PNP La Carlota City, Good Morning. Every year, we reserve the whole month of March to celebrate women. To appreciate this particular occasion, allow me the honor to lead you all in walking back through the history lane. The observation of a special day for women traces its roots in different movements in the 1900s, particularly in the US where garment workers were fighting for their economic rights and fair work hours. In 1911, the first International Women’s Day was celebrated on 19 March participated by millions of men and women. However, a tragic incident led to the changing of this date. On 25 March, 1911, 140 working women died in a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York City. This brought to light the unfair labor practices and inhumane working conditions that women...

     I was invited to give a little talk in relation to the Women's Month Celebration. I was done with my short message when I couldn't get off my mind the film On the Basis of Sex. I wish I can be given another opportunity to give a small talk on women because that would be about my recommended films. Well, why wait? I'm sharing to you here now, my list.    The Joy Luck Club (1993) based on a novel The Joy Luck Club was getting the cultural conversation started 25 years prior to the recent Crazy Rich Asian. A contemporary drama that starred all Asian women in its principal roles, this film explores the relationships between and among four mothers and their daughters. I saw the film only recently but I read the book by Amy Tan when I was still in college. There is much lesson on politics among women to reflect on even on the family setting alone.   The Color Purple (1985) based on a novel Alice Walker's epic novel is made into film by director Ste...

On the left is my Aunt Imelda who inspired this story  while the woman on the right is my mother.  Both turned 75 and 65 this year.  Photo taken in Taoist Temple in Cebu City last year. I was so sure that my father's zest for education led me to my profession. Become a lawyer so that your signature turns expensive, he would say . But it turned out that I was only partly correct. I learned later on that my story also started from my maternal side through my aunt. My lola married my lolo, who was ten years her senior, at the age of fifteen. They begot her in 1941. Being the eldest to a stern uneducated farmer and a chinese-garter-playing teenager was a challenge. As parents, they were unorganized, dominant, and unreasonable. It was because they were uneducated . My Lolo finished just his Spanish alphabet equivalent to grade one while my Lola, her grade three. "Education in my family is a family history. It is worth retelling to a generation which neg...