Gendering Legitimacy: The Case of a Women-Led Community-Based Organization in Barangay Tatalon, Quezon City, Philippines

Abstract

Women-led, urban poor community-based organizations (CBOs) are crucial in representing the claims and interests of urban poor communities. Yet little is known of the ways in which their leaders establish organizational legitimacy in conditions of structural disadvantage and deprivation. This article thus explores the intersections of power, organizational legitimation, and gender through the case of the Tatalon Chapter of the Pinagkaisang Lakas ng Mamamayan (People Power United), a women-led, urban poor CBO waging a housing campaign in Barangay Tatalon,Quezon City (QC), Philippines. Drawing from interview and ethnographic data, my findings show that power manifests in ways that increase the unpaid community work of women community leaders. But they also show how some community leaders adopt organizing strategies that are insensitive to the conditions of women leaders and members who are likewise multiply-burdened. I present these findings by describing leaders' strategies that each correspond to distinct aspects of a CBO's legitimacy: (a) their response to the QC Local Government's housing program (pragmatic legitimacy) and their efforts at addressing state-led red-tagging (regulative legitimacy), and (b) their informal practice of prioritizing active
members in their organization's list of housing applicants (moral legitimacy). Whereas the latter describes dynamics that are internal to an organization, the former describes strategies born out of structural conditions, i.e., decentralized urban planning and democratic erosion.