ABSTRACT
This chapter shows the countless stories of peasant women in the Philippines who are struggling to sustain and defend life by being prepared to sacrifice their own. For peasant women in the Philippines, the survival of their families and communities is synonymous with the survival and preservation of the environment. There are already reports of peasant women selling their bodies in exchange for rice just to be able to feed their children. Women farm-workers in the pineapple and banana plantations in Mindanao, and rice and corn workers were the first to notice that prolonged exposure to certain pesticides can actually cause spontaneous abortions and stillbirths. Women, who traditionally practised indigenous, environmentally sound methods of planting and nurturing through the use of natural fertilisers and pesticides, were alienated from these traditional technologies through the intervention of the Green Revolution. With the Calabarzon project, the whole ecological make-up of the five provinces of southern Luzon is being altered.
