Last Thursday, a roomful ofDe Anza College students becamewitnesses in the Filipino humanrights battle, according to authorand San Jose State University associateprofessor Peter Chua.

Chua, the co-author of “Women,Culture, Development, Ethnicand Racial Studies,” spoke aboutthe effect of involvement of theUnited States’ war on terror inthe Philippines as part of the college’sobservance of InternationalWomen’s Day.

De Anza philosophy instructorTram Nguyen started the lecturewith stories of her involvementwith Amnesty International.Nguyen was elected in 2005 tothe organization’s board of directors.

Since the 2001 there have been over850 killings and disappearances in thePhilippines, but it’s not well known,Chua said.

“This is something that people areslowly learning about,” Chua said. “In asense you are now part of the growingnumber of witnesses.”The responsibility for witnesses ofhuman rights violation is to talk about it,Chua said.

The hardest hit are usually the womenand children of the community.”Often times women are the ones whoface the burden to help rebuilt these families,”Chua said.

To Nguyen, the first steps in solvingthe problem are knowledge getting involvedwith activism.

“The idea that ordinary people couldengage and make a difference really affectedme,” said Nguyen. “It is a forumwhere people can come together andlearn about injustices.”With activism groups as Amnesty International,a power shift to the peopleis a recent development according toNguyen.

“For the first time there is recourse forthe ordinary citizen outside the state andthe corporation,” Nguyen said.”Unlike the state that rules by force,this kind of activism is a nonviolentsource of power.”The first National Woman’s Day wasobserved on Feb. 28, 1909.