|
By Nora O. Gamolo, Senior Desk Editor
In Asia, and even globally, Filipino women are
admired for being the most politically dynamic as a distinct social
sector.
The images of Filipinas leading political
rallies and serving as bringers of political change are spectacular.
But also confusing.
Witness: The widow Imelda Romualdez Marcos is
now embroiled in legal battles to regain the contested Marcos wealth
under sequestration and frozen. But she is winning her cases. And
the Marcos family is resurrecting itself politically.
Imelda almost had political parity with her late
husband Ferdinand in the 1970s up to the mid-1980s. She headed the
commission that governed the towns and cities comprising Metro
Manila.
Another widow, Corazon “Cory” C. Aquino,
brought down the Marcoses in 1986 with five million followers during
the EDSA People Power Revolt. She became president and weathered a
succession of coups over a six-year period. She ended her term
victorious and in full command of the country’s key resources of
political power, with very little scandal to taint her turbulent
reign.
Segue into 2001, when then-Vice-President Gloria
Arroyo facilitated the dismissal from the presidency of Joseph
Ejercito Estrada who literally left Malacañang after a three-day
siege of rallies, again on EDSA, and the military and police’s
withdrawal of support.
With EDSA 2 behind her, Mrs. Arroyo is now into
her seventh year as president and the most politically powerful
person in the land. Her presidency has been rocked by a succession
of allegations investigated in Senate hearings televised for the
whole world to witness—election fraud and corruption, and the
resultant impeachment complaints in 2005, 2006 and 2007. The latest
accusation against her is of selling the country’s territories in
the Spratlys to loan-giver China.
To some, these three women owe their political
survival to miracles. But is it perhaps because Filipino women are
more active than men?
Statistics released by the National Commission
on the Role of Filipino Women (NCRFW) show that in the 1998 and 2001
national and local elections, women voters’ turnout rates were
slightly higher than men’s. Nowadays, women are winning more slots
against male rivals.
The great majority of Filipino women’s basic
socialization, however, is to serve as followers, rather than as
leaders competing against men in the arenas of public opinion and
advocacy. This then works against them in the world of hard-boiled
politics.
Except for the famous women presidents,
presidential candidates, senators and a few nationally known female
governors and congresswomen, few Filipino women participate in
political leadership and governance.
In the election years of 1998 and 2001, women
comprised a meager 20 percent of the total number of candidates.
Many of them won. But 20 percent is small considering that women
make up almost half of the population.
In 2004, the average proportion of women in key
elected posts was no more than 17 percent. In the 2007 senatorial
election, there were four women out of 37 hopefuls (10.8 percent) of
which only one entered in the top 12 winning senators (8.3 percent).
Women participation in the senatorial election in 2004 was higher at
20.8 percent (10 out of 48 senatorial candidates) with three women
elected (25.0 percent).
There were 51 women representatives of the 14th
Congress (based on the results of the 2007 national election). They
account for 21.25 percent of the total 240 representatives in the
Lower House. During the 13th Congress, there were only 37 women
members, or 15.74 percent, of the total 235 seats.
The Gabriela party-list, an offshoot of the
Gabriela Women’s Coalition, has secured women’s official
representation as a sector in Congress. Another women’s
party-list, Abanse Pinay, failed to make it in 2004.
The Gabriela party-list is among 93 civil
society/private sector organizations that carry the agenda of
marginalized sectors that vied for a limited number of seats in the
House of Representatives. Only 21 party-list representatives made it
to the House, with Gabriela accounting for two of them: Liza
Largoza-Maza and Luzviminda M. Ilagan.
Gabriela is now fighting to have a more liberal
interpretation of the party-list law to allow any party list
garnering at least six percent of all total votes cast to have three
representatives, rather than only two as maximum, unless it is the
topnotcher among the party-list groups. This was the controversial
interpretation of the Supreme Court in a decision penned by
then-Justice Artemio Panganiban.
For the second time, Gabriela won representation
in the House of Representatives in 2007. It first put in one House
representative for the first time in 2004.
Gabriela also supported many political
contenders, banking on its big political base. Sen. Pia Cayetano was
endorsed by Gabriela in 2004, as well as other local government
contenders.
Of the total 21 elected party-list
representatives, six or 28.57 percent are women. This is higher than
the 2004 figure which was only 17.39 percent (four women out of 23
elected party-list representatives).
Advocacy politics
How have women fared in advocacy politics? This
is an entirely different matter.
Two nights before the March 8 celebration of
International Women’s Day, the Manila Police Department violently
dispersed some 200 workers from Southern Tagalog, including women,
who encamped in front of the Department of Labor and Employment
building.
The group was preparing to join rallies the next
day in Makati and the Women’s Day march-rally. Some 17 were
seriously injured and brought to the Philippine General Hospital and
the Ospital ng Maynila. Five protesters were arrested in the Ospital
ng Maynila and brought to the Manila Police District. Several others
suffered minor cuts and bruises. Those apprehended were later
released without charges.
Gabriela Women’s Party Representative Liza
Maza condemned the Manila Police’s “brutality” to the
protesting workers from Southern Tagalog, saying, “[The] violent
dispersal will not cow women from participating in the rally
tomorrow, International Women’s Day. On the contrary, we feel this
will further fuel the public display of outrage against social
injustices, corruption and human rights violations that Mrs. Arroyo
perpetuates.”
Urban poor women have lately become organized,
with reports that the number of poor Filipinos increased from 23.8
million in 2003 to 27.6 million in 2006, or a 3.8-million increase
in the number of poor people, and with many demolition jobs
reportedly being planned in the metropolis.
Commented Cristina Palabay, Gabriela party-list
secretary-general, “The situation of the millions of urban poor
families deprived of decent housing belies the economic growth being
painted by the administration. Arroyo should be held accountable for
the widespread poverty of the people, while the First Family and
their cohorts pocket millions of kickbacks and public funds.”
Women are among the most creative in their
protests. Lately, urban poor women tied pink ribbons and affixed
posters in the doors of their homes as a sign of their protest
against demolitions being conducted by the Metro Manila Development
Authority (MMDA) and to issue a call for Mrs. Arroyo to step down
from office. The posters are marked “Bawal si Gloria dito [Gloria
(referring to Mrs. Arroyo) is banned here].”
|
