On November 2-6, 1998, a group of women gathered in the City of Angeles in Pampanga to look into the problems impeding Filipino women’s exercise of their rights and their development.  They studied the historical roots of women’s oppression.  They reviewed and analyzed the history of the women’s movement.  From here came the decision to put up KAISA KA.

Initially named Pagkakaisa ng Kababaihan para sa Inang Bayan (Unity of Women for the Motherland), the group of women that comprised the national organizing committee of KAISA KA immediately took the issue of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) and the subsequent war exercises and their impact on women around which they raised the consciousness and organized women.  Not long after it went public, KAISA KA started to involve itself in alliances, networks and campaigns to advance women’s rights and welfare in a wide range of issues: violence against women and children; the growing number of women in dirty, difficult, damaging and degrading precarious jobs, women and war and feminization of migration.

It is now a national federation and political center. Women from various sectors—peasants, workers, students, urban poor and indigenous people—have made possible the formation of KAISA KA chapters and the affiliation of other women’s organizations in different regions and provinces throughout the Philippines.

On its First National Congress in 2008, KAISA KA changed its full name to Pagkakaisa ng Kababaihan para sa Kalayaan or Unity of Women for Freedom.