Chicas is available on Spotify and other podcast platforms
07/08/2025
Join us on Sunday, August 10, for a sharing and discussion on International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and the Filipino people’s struggle for genuine peace and justice!
IHL Solidarity Discussion
August 10, 2025, Sunday, 2 pm
Chapterhouse Room 5
32 Madasalin Street, Sikatuna Village
Quezon City
Free and open to the public
03/08/2025
Happy birthday to the feminist poet, Aida F. Santos!
Earthbound
me
skybound
you.
And in-between
the vast
ocean
of possibilities:
when earth becomes
sky and sky
kisses the warm
coast of divided
Selves
in a fusion of elements.
- from “Earthbound, Skybound” (2000)
31/07/2025
Thank you to everyone who joined the auction for BANGTAN REMIXED! Thanks to your bids, we are now able to cover next month’s rent of the space shared with and Independent Study 💖
Lalong pasasalamat kay Prof. Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez for donating the books and stickers!!! Limited edition stickers are also available for sale in the space.
32 Madasalin St., Sikatuna Vill.
Wed-Sun, 3-10 pm
30/07/2025
Maligayang Kaarawan kay lolang manunulat, tagasalin, publisher, editor, at rebolusyonarya! 💖
30/07/2025
The Nelson Mandela Rules designates each prison to have a library for the use of persons deprived of liberty (PDL). The library should be supporting all programs of the jail facilities, prioritizing the overall welfare of the PDL.
Since 2024, Gantala Press has partnered with the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) in implementing Bumasa at Lumaya, a mini-libraries program in highly congested female jails. An aim of the program is to help PDLs earn GCTA (Good Conduct Time Allowance) which will significantly reduce their time of commitment and hasten the decongestion of jails.
Bumasa at Lumaya follows the Read Your Way Out Program of BJMP and the UNODC, supplementing it by creating mini-libraries in female facilities (the pilot jails of RYWO are all male jails) in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. We have met new friends in the course of the project, such as Baa Baa Booksheep which donated boxes of books.
We would like to help build a library in each of the 80+ female jails in the country. If you would like to donate books, magazine/newspaper subscriptions, musical instruments, board games, tables and chairs, electric fans, shelves, and other library resources, please get in touch with us! An immediate need are large-screen TV monitors for their digital literacy program.
Maraming salamat kina Ma’am Lani, Ma’am Cherrie, Sir Nards, and all the officers of BJMP for the successful signing of the deed of donation and turnover of library resources! Thank you as well to the Commission on Human Rights for their support of the program.
28/07/2025
People’s SONA 2025
Itakwil ang papet, pahirap, pasista, at pahamak na rehimeng US-Marcos!
27/07/2025
Re-sharing one of our early podcast episodes, released on this day four years ago.
Carmen “Nanay Mameng” Deunida was a beloved mass leader of the urban poor sector for many decades until her death at 93 on July 19, 2021. In this episode, we speak with filmmaker Adjani Arumpac, director of the film NANAY MAMENG (Kodao Productions, 2012) on what she remembers about the veteran activist, the challenges and joys of translating her life into film, and Nanay Mameng’s larger-than-life legacy. A snippet of Ms Arumpac’s interview with Nanay Mameng in 2010 is included in the end.
We are excited to finally publish the collected poems of Nanay Thess Nicart of KASAMA-LR! Nanay Thess is a farmer in Lupang Ramos, the 374-hectare agricultural land in Dasmariñas, Cavite. Her poetry speaks of her beloved family and kasamas and the hopes of ordinary people, the plight of farmers, and the persistence of land struggle.
LAND IS LIFE
Land is treaded upon by the poor and rich,
Those with money and those with none.
Many benefit from the land,
When the time comes, the land also becomes our grave.
Land is the livelihood of farmers,
Planting, in particular.
They are the makers of food on the table,
Rice uncooked and cooked, to have or have not.
But why are ricefields now residences?
What you can see are high-rise buildings.
And only a few wealthy persons benefit,
The farmer could only shake his head.
If this system continues,
We will need to import to have rice on the table.
How has this happened
To a country rich in agriculture?
21/07/2025
Thank you to UP Faculty Regent Prof. Early Sol Gadong and her inaanak Den-Den for being our first customers in our new shared space at .ph! Along with and Independent Study, we’ll be selling books and zines and organizing workshops, listening sessions, and other events with friends. We’re next-door to .bedroom, a gallery and art space that currently hosts Tanya Villanueva 💕 Do visit the house at 32 Madasalin, it has a bar and restaurant on the first floor and various art rooms on the second floor.
Opening hours of Spare Bedroom and the Balcony Room (where we are):
Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Gantala Press posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Want your business to be the top-listed Media Company?
Share
On Feminism
Drawn from interview questions by students.
Gantala Press is an independent, all-women, feminist collective that seeks to enrich and promote Philippine women's writing by publishing works for, of, and by women. Since its establishment in 2015, it has published varied materials such as anthologies, komix, a recipe book, zines, etc. that discuss the status of women in different patriarchal contexts. We also collaborate closely with women from other marginalized sectors, such as peasants.
Feminism is a critical analysis of the socio-economic, socio-political, and socio-cultural aspects of a context / environment to understand how they shape the concept of gender, especially of women. We believe that the fight to destroy oppressive class relations, which is the root of all oppression, is intertwined with the fight to destroy patriarchy. You cannot have one without the other. It is essential to point out that feminism does not and must not detach itself from its economic and political roots: that upholding feminism must also mean upholding better living and working conditions not only for the women and their family but for the nation entirely.
That it is "anti-male," or "extreme," or "exclusionary;" that it is rabid and hysterical. Some so-called nationalists also maintain that the struggle for gender equality is not a priority and must take the back seat, and that all efforts should go towards class struggle; that feminism must wait until after class liberation. Some people also think that feminism is nothing but a western, bourgeois construct and that Filipinos have no use for it. We have also heard of Filipina feminists who dread to be thought of as "anti-Duterte" and who think that feminism should accommodate anyone, whatever her political beliefs are. We think that, especially in these times, a feminist cannot help but be anti-Duterte. We really find it hard to imagine a pro-Duterte feminist. A feminist is against oppression, first and foremost, and Duterte is the embodiment of the kind of oppression that Filipinas have always been trying to overcome. We have heard liberal feminists call feminism a "fun" thing to do, which is very silly. All over the world, throughout history, feminists have been castigated, harassed, or killed for their beliefs and actions. Actually, women in general are still being castigated, harassed, or killed for simply being women. The president constantly puts down women and tries to pass this off as just “having fun.” We cannot afford to "have fun," or in this case at least, to use the language of the oppressor in fighting oppression.
By publishing feminist, class-conscious, progressive materials; organizing events where women are central; and attending rallies. One of our founders is actively working with peasant women, and this deeply informs her literary works, whether poetry or zines. We also try to join as many conversations as possible about feminism in the Philippines, for example by delivering lectures and workshops in schools, and by answering thesis questions like these.
Our main accomplishments are really the books we have produced. We are very proud of each of them. Our first book is an anthology of women's writings which we think includes a good representation not of "women's writings" per se, but of women's experiences in the country (and even abroad). That book includes poems, essays, and stories about le****ns, mothers, biracials, daughters, workers, political prisoners, Muslims, lumad, women in the Cordillera region, artists, writers, and others, written in various Philippine languages. Our second publication is a collection of essays by women on the Marawi siege, followed by a Mranao cookbook which, although written by a man, is a good documentation of a woman-shaped culture that is severely threatened by militarization. We're publishing a second volume on the siege, which will include essays and poems written mostly by women from Marawi / Mindanao. The Marawi project was done in the context of an entire information and fundraising campaign which also opened much-needed conversations about women and war, and connected us to a lot of people who eventually became partners and collaborators. We have just published an anthology of le***an komix created by q***r women, one of the first of its kind in the country. Part of the proceeds of all our books go to various causes: for IDPs, peasant women and children, and student organizations, for example.
More publications, especially those that document women’s lives and histories, and a physical space where women can gather and have meaningful feminist conversations and be creative and productive.
Class oppression and class inequality.
Our women have always been strong, powerful, and revolutionary; many Filipinas in history prove that. However, the so-called gender equality does not manifest itself in everyday life. Our women still suffer from sexual harassment and r**e, domestic abuse and violence, and mockery or denigration by everything and everyone from the president to the media to our fellow women. We have had two woman presidents and a number of women in government but they turned out to be loyal to their class, not to their sisters. Some of Duterte's most rabid defenders are women who insult or blame his victims! Likewise, a great majority of Filipinos still live in poverty. If you're a woman farmer, for example, your suffering is twice your husband's because, as head of the family, it is only the husband who gets paid (almost next to nothing) for farm work even if his wife or children has labored along with him. And after a day's work in the farm, the wife has to take care of the children and other household chores simply because she is expected to. So, as long as many women still live in abject poverty like this, there is no true gender equality.
Feminism is necessary as long as class struggle is necessary. Though the Philippines might appear gender equal on the surface, there will always be women exploitation and abuse unless we call for a national system overhaul. Because Gantala Press envisions not only a gender equal community but a community free from all forms of exploitation, we continue with our publication endeavors that take strength from progressive roots.
