WEDO Primer 50/50 Campaign
March 2001

The First Step: Getting in the Door
Philippines: We Must Dare to Move Forward

Daisy Avance Fuentes is the first woman deputy speaker in the Philippines House of Representatives. When her 10-year legal term limit expires in 2001, she plans to run for governor in her home province, South Cotabato because women there haven’t cracked the executive branch yet.

My country, the Philippines, has been a democratic state since the late 1930s, but our struggle for freedom and equality has been as colorful as in any nation with a history of foreign domination. Books, films, national holidays and celebrations all note our history. But lost in our history is the struggle of Filipino women for recognition as equal partners—in the family, in the community and in nation building.

Filipino women project a façade of liberation in the way we dress, in our music, in our speech. Our women are everywhere, and whatever the forum, they are intelligent and eloquent. But deep inside, the Philippines is a nation split apart, where women are child-bearers and rearers, supportive partners of their husbands, always second in command, but never commander. At first glance at the political landscape, we have a president, he is male, and we have a vice president, she is female. We say well and good. But if we look more closely, we find only one female cabinet secretary. In the Senate, there are three women out of 23. In the House of Representatives, 22 out of 218 are women. [Editor’s Note: Since this speech, vice president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo became president following a popular insurrection. Cabinet numbers may have changed due to ensuing resignations and reappointments.]

The executive positions held by women in local politics are just as scarce. In the Department of National Defense and local government, which include the armed forces and the Philippine national police, there are no women at all from secretary to under secretary. In the peace process in the south, women have limited involvement.

Glass ceilings remain in the Philippines, unyielding despite constitutional mandates, legislative enactments and pressures from women’s advocates. Women are kept out of the political arena by intangible, subconsciously, or less than subconsciously, erected walls of gender bias. No legislative initiatives can pass without compromises diluting their very essence—even on such critical issues as trafficking in women and sexual harassment. And even though many executive policies and legislative acts for women are now in place, they are superficially implemented. The challenge for Filipino women is to enter the rarified environment of politics or to remain forever on the sidelines of policy-making and implementation. We face many obstacles, but four of the more prevalent are stereotyping, the nature of the political beast, a rigid electoral system and apathy.

The first obstacle is culturally-rooted stereotyping. Women are relegated to roles as supporting partners in homes, in the community, and in nation building. Dissuaded from asking why, discouraged from breaking free of the mold, from childhood we are conditioned to think that there is a limit to what one can accomplish because of one’s gender. I remember my mother saying that I couldn’t become a lawyer because that is a male occupation. And everybody said I couldn’t enter politics because it’s a violent world and women should not be there.

The second obstacle is the nature of our politics. With its patronage money and violence, it’s a natural male dominion. It’s an all-male club. There is no state support for parties, and they believe that if you don’t have the muscles you cannot get in or stay in.

The third obstacle is the rigid electoral system, which does not provide a level playing field for disadvantaged sectors, especially women. And the fourth obstacle is the indifference and in some cases abhorrence many women of influence feel toward parties and politics. There is a sense that politics is dirty, and we’re afraid of being contaminated by it.

What is to be done to get women into politics despite the obstacles? First we have to liberate the minds of our women from the bondage of gender bias. Second is the adoption of transparency in politics. Third is electoral reforms. And fourth is the active involvement of women’s organizations in politics. Otherwise, we’ll always be on the margin. It’s a long and arduous process, which is why we’ve moved the deadline for our 50/50 goal from 2001 to 2005. And we’re afraid that we’ll have to move that time frame again. But 50/50 can be achieved.

Unless we institutionalize reform, be it social, economic, and, most especially, political, we will always be celebrating individual victories and showcasing role models even while losing these role models to the system. We will never take these experiences in stride as proper and right. I always say to myself and to my political and party colleagues: We must dare where no one else will.

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