Status

On the third year of implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action
Still limited political participation for Filipino women

(Excerpt from the NGO Report on the Year 3 Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action by the Philippine NGO Beijing Score Board, submitted to the Philippine Government and the 43^rd Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, March 1999)

Filipino women generally enjoy equal rights in terms of participation in political and public life. The reality, however, does not reflect this as women themselves are generally adverted to politics which they perceive as "dirty" and basically a man’s domain. They are a strong voting force, 50.3 percent of them voted in the 1995 election. But very few of them run as candidates. As a result, there are only four women senators out of the 24. The lower House has 21 women legislators, some 10 percent of the total number of seats for Congress representatives. The same trend applies for the President’s Cabinet. Out of the 22 Cabinet positions, only four are occupied by women. They head the departments of health, social welfare and development, tourism and youth commission, all traditional women concerns. The judiciary has also less women judges and justices, just 15.3 percent of the total. The 14-member Supreme Court has only one woman justice.

In the community, a woman’s status is also largely subordinate. Leadership in organizations and major decisions are largely in the hands of men. The same is true in the workplace. Statistics have not significantly changed from the 1992-93 figures which states that women constituted 46.5 percent of the 115,889 total members of registered public sector unions. While women still are a minority in leadership positions, there were 65 women union presidents and 1,536 women union officers in the same year. In the private sector in 1993, 41.4 percent of union members were women, a decrease in percentage from 52.31 percent in 1990 even if the total number of female members increased by more than 86,000.

It is significant to note that in 1991, 58 percent of career service employees in government were women. However, in third level positions in government, women only accounted for 30.3 percent. The majority of women in the career service, 68.5 percent, are found in second level of positions.

Although there is perceptible trends towards greater participation of women both in elective and appointive positions, women are still very much in the minority. From 1946 to 1992, the highest percentage of women in the House of Representatives was 12.5 percent in 1946 and in the Senate, 25 percent in 1967. For the entire period 1946-1992, the average member of elected women was only about 6 percent. Among local elected officials, the ratios remain essentially the same. In the 1995 elections, the percentage of elected women officials ranged from allow of 6.2 percent for city mayors to a high of 17.10 percent for vice-governors.

The enactment of the Party-list Law (RA 7941, the 12 marginalized sectors are: labor, peasant, fisherfolk, urban poor, indigenous cultural communities, elderly, handicapped, women, youth, veterans, overseas workers and professionals) raises hopes for expanding political horizons for women and yet realization of expectation appears dim in view of Commission on Election’s admission of lack of funds and inadequate information dissemination to fully implement the law.

Also, elections have not yet started, already traditional politics have started the machinery for subverting the interest of marginalized sectors. Recently it has been reported that a major political party, not included in the party list, is organizing satellite parties to capture most of the 50 or so seats reserved for the 12 marginalized sectors in the House of Representatives.