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THE Magna Carta of Women, which empowers women as equal to men in
authority, is now out of the hands of the House Committee on Rules
and is being readied for plenary approval.
The Magna Carta of Women not only calls for
equal treatment before the law, but is an effort to revise, if not
totally repeal, discriminatory provisions against women in the
country’s various laws.
This includes some provisions of the Family
Code, specifically provisions 96, 124, 211 and 335 which pertain to
a husband’s decision prevailing over the wife’s in disagreements
involving conjugal property, and in cases of parental authority and
legal guardianship over the person and property of a common child.
Other laws that will be amended include the
Labor Code covering night work prohibition for women workers, and
the Anti-Rape Law which redefines marital rape and its penalties.
Likewise, the Revised Penal Code’s articles
333 and 334 on concubinage and adultery, where women can be easily
charged with adultery, will be modified.
The Magna Carta of Women also “recognizes,
protects, fulfills and promotes human rights and fundamental
freedoms of women, particularly the poor and marginalized”.
Rep. Nanette Castelo-Daza of Quezon City, who
chairs the House Committee on Women and Gender Equality, reported
that the 55-member Legislative Executive Development Advisory
Council unanimously gave its nod to this milestone legislation. The
council also declared the measure a priority.
This Omnibus bill is a consolidation and
refinement of 19 measures that include 15 House Bills and four
privilege speeches.
The House Committee on Rules also underscored
the importance of using “of” instead of “for” in the Magna
Carta, stating that the preposition “of” is part of the
empowerment framework, and indicates that women are “active
participants in their own development rather than being mere passive
agents”.
-- Jomar Canlas
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