WOMEN
IN POLITICS: Beyond Numbers and Images
Speech delivered at the regular meeting of Inner Wheel Club
Mandarin Hotel
September 26, 2002
Some
wags say that, unlike England, the Philippines has not been well-led by
women. Rather than Elizabeth the Great and Victoria Regina Imperialis
and Baroness Lady Margaret Thatcher, whose governments presided over great
period of peace, prosperity and transformation, we haven't had such luck
or happenstance with our female leaderships. The cry has therefore been,
"Let's give men a chance, women haven't done such a wonderful job!"
I have many number of bills dealing with all-women issues, and I am happy to report that, across party lines and multi-sectorally, the women of Congress have pushed an agenda for the punishment of the trafficking of women and minors as well as a new anti-domestic violence, women-in-intimate relationships law. I myself have authored amendments to the Revised Penal Code regarding a gender-neutral punishment of a new crime of "marital infidelity" instead of bigamy, concubinage or adultery, and a gender-free definition of "prostitution." But today I wish to speak of issues that, while pertaining to women, subjugate and impose change upon whole populations of women and men.
First, let us be aware of a new and alarming feminine diaspora. The feminization of labor and labor migration has become all too familiar to us, to Filipina workers throughout the globe compelled to seek employment outside their own country, to millions of domestic and menial workers forced by poverty and circumstance to care for children not their own while their children are left at home with little or no care at all. The profound impact of the Filipina diaspora cannot be underestimated, and while we accept the economic reality of migration, I fear the social cost of those overseas contract dollar remittances. Will we find the cost of the Filipino family too high a price to pay for those all-important dollars? What shall the return be upon thousands of motherless children and wife-less fathers? And will the woman herself remain intact and strong at the end of a long journey away from her family?
Closely linked to this problem is the issue of feminized poverty: 70% of the world's poor are women. The gender gap in earning is equal to 75% of a man's average wage (not including the agricultural worker's salary). The economic crisis in so-called "developing democracies" has intensified the risk of poverty for women, which, like unemployment, is likely to be increasingly feminized. Women are major contributors to national economies through both their paid and unpaid labor. Rural women are particularly overworked and ignored. It has repeatedly been proven that the education of women is the single best investment in family income, immediately resulting in the upliftment of the family and translating into well-nourished and hopeful children.
Finally, I have no doubt that women hold the answer to poverty because women feed the world. In agricultural communities of the North where I come from, women perform a large number of farming functions in the cycle of reproduction and culture, seeding and planting, the application of fertilizers and pesticides, harvest, post-harvest and processing. Working up to (16) hours daily during the peak season, it is these women too who must find means, through entrepreneurship and micro-credit, to augment a paltry budget and somehow set food on the table. Truly, women feed their families, it is women who find the food for their children, clearly the women who feed the world will end poverty.
The problems are myriad, they cannot be overstated - but believe in a strong, an abundant and resplendent womanhood. I believe in women who are more than labor, women who are above poverty, women who feed the world even as they stand to govern. Not all women need to be in politics, rather it is politics that must engage all women to change and transform our world.