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By Rene Q. Bas, Editor in Chief
THE world praises the Philippines for having the
most dynamic women leaders and achievers in politics, lawmaking,
business and education.
Not just our two women presidents—Corazon
Aquino and Gloria Arroyo—have made a mark in the consciousness of
their peers and newspaper readers and TV audiences all over the
globe.
Sadly, the fame and fortune of our outstanding
women merely serve to hide the misery of the majority of our female
population.
This situation, however, is just an echo of a
larger truth about our society: That only a small segment of our
population of 84 million souls make up the part called the elite who
practically have all the wealth, advanced education, opportunities
and power. This fortunate segment includes the wealthier
portion of the diminishing part of the population called the middle
class.
The upper-strata women of our country, however,
also suffer their own sort of deprivation that in turn echoes that
of the country’s lower classes.
Women make up 49.72 percent of the population.
Which means almost one-half of the elite Filipino population are
women. Yet, less than 20 percent of our political, business,
bureaucracy, judicial, military and police leaders are women.
(The article “Filipinas still have to fight for empowerment”
details the political leadership injustices.)
In politics, more women of the Philippines have
been turning out to vote than the men. Yet very much
less than one half of the country’s elected officials are women.
In education, girls and women fare better in
enrollment and completion of studies than men. And there are
more women (57.72 percent) professional license holders than men.
Yet, women make up less than half of the school heads,
administrators and professional-group chiefs.
On the labor front, the censuses register less
women as employed workers than men. Yet, there are very much
more women working without pay for family businesses and farms
than men. And what about the unpaid labor and management
services of housewives and mothers?
Even among the poor classes, women suffer more
in terms of diseases and lack of medical service and medicines.
But—another sign that God loves the poor and the
oppressed—Filipino women live longer than Filipino men.
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