In squatter settlements in cities in developing countries, community-based organizations(CBOs) are widely established to secure the rights of residents to dwell in these settlements. In the Philippines, these kinds of organizations, which appeared in the 1970s to counter the government’s oppressive policies on squatting, have become actively committed to urban housing policies since the EDSA Revolution of 1986.<br>Studies of CBOs of squatter dwellers in metropolitan Manila have shown that these organizations are dynamic because various interests are interacting. Squatter settlements hold multifarious individuals with diverse interests stemming from their backgrounds, such as their sexual, socioeconomic, and cultural attributes. In this article, I introduce a gender perspective into analysis of CBOs as places for multiple deployments of residents’ subsistence strategies.<br>The discussions about these CBOs in metropolitan Manila have conceived that the extent of women’s involvement in activities of the organizations is deep, though this aspect of the CBOs has not been researched in detail. Based on fieldwork at a squatter settlement in metropolitan Manila, this article explores the actual conditions of women’s activities in those CBOs, contextualizes them into the community’s socioeconomic structure, and examines the organizations’ relationships to actors around them.<br>Household research conducted during this fieldwork shows that most married women are employed in jobs near or within their residential space; in contrast to men and unmarried women, who tend to work as employees some distance from their settlement.<br>Furthermore, I explore the dynamics of the activities of CBOs working on residential issues in the settlement; and focus on their female officers who engage in community work or self-employment, which are common jobs among married women in the settlement. First, focusing on income structures of these women’s households, the study reveals that there is continuity between their employment and the activities of the CBOs. Then, examining their life stories, the study shows that the female officers who engage in the types of employment mentioned above used to work in a productive sphere outside their residential space, but quit those jobs for some reason.<br>From the above discussion, the paper concludes that the functions of CBOs in squatter settlements are not restricted to securing the right to residence, which has been considered as the squatter dwellers’ greatest common interest. It argues that the organizations in the settlement are places where women, excluded from labor opportunities in the productive sphere, attempt to realize subsistence strategies for their households through their activities.