LOS ANGELES ? It?s a Sunday afternoon that I wouldn?t have wished to spend any other way ? sharing the stage with some incredible Filipina women telling unique women?s stories.

I?m talking about ?The Vagina Monologues.? This particular production was for the benefit of the Likhaan Center for Women Health, Inc (http://www.likhaan.org).

?TVM? was created by Eve Ensler, and for a long time was performed as a one-woman play, with her tackling all the roles (including a girl ranging in age from 5 to 16; a proper British lady who found her clitoris in a vagina workshop; and an elderly New Yorker who closed her ?cellar? due to ?flooding?).

Now, more than 10 years after its debut, many ?TVM? productions are staged all over the world. Thousands of women ? movie actors, singers, television personalities, college students, politicians, community leaders ? have all been part of it. In the Philippines, it has been produced numerous times by the New Voice Company, including a version in Tagalog (titled ?Usaping Puki? in 2007).

Monologues

There are monologues that celebrate one woman?s wonderful sexual experience with a man (?Because He Liked To Look At It?); how furious one woman is at the assault of her vagina (?My Angry Vagina?); the experience of being present for a granddaughter?s birth (?I Was in the Room?); a sex worker who only worked on women (?The Women Who Liked To Make Vaginas Happy?); a young girl?s memories of her own personal transformation from thinking of her vagina as a place of pain and violence, to one of love and heaven (?The Little Coochi Snorcher That Could?); a comfort woman?s recollection of the horror of rape at the hands of Japanese soldiers during World War II (?Say It?).

It also includes ?A Vagina Happy Fact? (that the clitoris is the only body part created purely for sexual pleasure, with twice as many nerve endings as those in the penis), and ?A Not-So-Happy Fact? (that about three million girls a year, especially in Africa, can expect for their clitoris to be partially or wholly removed).

The Congo

This year, there was a spotlight monologue, written by Eve after her many visits to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The DRC has been called the ?most dangerous place to be a woman or a girl.? Approximately more than 500,000 women and girls have been raped, kidnapped, killed, beaten, or forced into prostitution.

Many of these women and girls are left for dead, and the systematic rape is a tactic of a bloody war, the bloodiest conflict since World War II. This monologue is titled ?A Teenage Girl?s Guide To Surviving Sex Slavery.?

Ted Benito was the angel who got this production rolling. He mobilized a cast of some of the most wonderful Filipino and Fil-American women: Tia Carrere (?Wayne?s World?), Tamlyn Tomita (?The Karate Kid II,? NBC?s ?Heroes?), Jannelle So (producer and host of TV show ?Kababayan LA? on KCSI Channel 18), Mona Pasquil (acting Lieutenant Governor of California), Leslie-Anne Huff (Disney Channel?s ?Sonny with a Chance? and ABC Family?s ?10 Things I Hate About You?), Becca Godinez (singer, songwriter, director, actress), Lara Avengoza (back-up vocalist for many US artists), Jennifer Paz (?Miss Saigon,? ?The Last 5 Years?) Giselle Tongi and yours truly.

Ted added three outstanding young Fil-Am ladies, all students from UCLA, to participate in the monologues: Melanie Fernandez, Lorelei Palacpac and Regina Rimando.

Empowered

On this Sunday afternoon, we laughed, cried, were horrified, felt rage, and felt empowered as women by this powerful piece.

The audience was one with us as we, one by one, stepped up to the mic and recited some of the most emotional, powerful, outrageous pieces ever written. The heart is capable of sacrifice, so is the vagina? ? ?Say we are sorry to me, say me, see me, say it, sorry?? ?No one can take anything from you if you don?t give it to them.?

V-Day movement

Eve is also the founder of V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls. V-Day also raises awareness and funds through the various benefit productions of ?TVM.?

2008 marked the 10th year of the V-Day movement, which was celebrated at the Louisiana Superdome in April of that year. To date, V-Day has raised over $70 million.

So, why did I decide to join this year?s V-Day? Because I am a woman, a mother, a wife, a daughter, a niece.

I did it because I have a daughter, and want her to grow up in a place that is safe and nurturing. I did it in honor of family members who have suffered domestic abuse at the hands of their boyfriends or husbands, and lived to get out and talk about it. I did it in memory of the amazing women in my life that have passed away.

To quote bits and pieces from the V-Day mission statement:

?V-Day is an organized response against violence toward women.

V-Day is a vision: We see a world where women live safely and freely.

V-Day is a demand: Rape, incest, battery, genital mutilation and sexual slavery must end now.

V-Day is a process: We will work as long as it takes. We will not stop until the violence stops.

V-Day is a day: We proclaim Valentine?s Day as V-Day, to celebrate women and end the violence.

V-Day is a wild, unstoppable movement and community.?

To learn more about the V-Day movement, visit http://www.vday.org.