SWAN Philippines Unity Statement
Sixty one Filipino social work practitioners, educators and students from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao and the National Capital Region have come together on August 24-25, 2020 to discuss the global, regional and national contexts of social work and the challenges they pose.
We acknowledge the adverse impacts of patriarchy, neoliberalism, environmental degradation on the lives of the people and how these are currently exacerbated by COVID 19 pandemic and the concomitant militarist approach of an authoritarian regime in addressing the pandemic.
We are concerned that mainstream social work practice has been framed by individualist understandings of social problems, resulting to the formation of a welfare system that is heavily reliant on private/non-government sector initiatives.
Further, we recognise that the devolved social welfare system runs on limited budget and is thus inadequate and fragmented, and is unable to measure up to its mandate, making it vulnerable to partisan politics.
We also realise that social work has radical and activist roots that we must continue, enrich and build on for social work to be a human rights profession, and for it to truly pursue the interests of the marginalised and oppressed.
United by our common pursuit of transformative social work, we have formally organised ourselves to become the Social Work Action Network -Philippines (SWAN-Philippines).
Consistent with the global definition of social work, we are guided by the principles of human rights, social justice, collective responsibility, and respect for diversity.
We commit ourselves to expose and work for the eradication of the roots of impoverishment, inequality, and social exclusion, arising from the intersection of class, age, race and ethnicity, , gender, SOGIE, ability and other variables.
We, SWAN Philippines, aim to build on and create pathways for progressive and critical social work education and practice.
We aspire to influence social policy discourse through education, advocacy and partnership development.
Acknowledging the evolving nature of social work, we seek to constantly reflect on and construct perspectives and frameworks on how social work can be relevant and responsive to the lived realities of the poor, marginalised and oppressed.
We commit to be reflexive, ethical, gender-responsive, culturally-sensitive and accountable in our praxis.
We commit to build partnerships in working for another world where respect for human rights is a way of life, where people can co-exist on an egalitarian basis, and where people do not fear for their lives in the exercise of fundamental human rights.
