The Dichotomy of Gender Equality in the Philippines

Tuesday, 23 February 2010 03:05 PM Dean Lozarie (Third Place, High School - English) Online Writing Contest Entries 2010

As far as gender equality goes, the Philippines is historically a country governed by men. That fact holds true as far as primitive times, when island-kingdoms were governed by men, who did the hunting and the working while women stayed at home and cared for the family.

It took us quite a while to welcome women as equals of men. For example, Filipinas were given the right to suffrage only in 1937 through an overwhelming plebiscite and the age requirement for marriage in our country wasn’t equalized for both genders until 1997. The Philippines’ transition from a society where the man stood dominant to one where both genders are deemed equal was not easy, the difficulty compounded by the prevalence of the Church, whose officialdom is composed entirely of women.

History stands witness to how much this transition has affected our country. In 1986, the Philippines shattered a glass ceiling by choosing Corazon Aquino, the housewife of a martyred senator, to restore democracy to the country and become its first female president. In the present context, the power of women in our society is just as felt: just think about Gloria Arroyo, who is the second longest serving president in our nation’s history.

Add to this the millions of Filipinas who now work in offices, teach in schools, preach in churches, and work physical jobs, and place it against the background of generations past, of arranged marriages and unschooled women, and you get a rough picture of how far our country has gone in terms of gender equality. In fact, the Philippines is among the top ten countries in terms of gender equality, according to the Social Institutions and Gender Index.

As encouraging as these advancements are, there is still much work to be done in the Philippines to further promote gender equality. Women are still regarded as subordinate to men in some communities in the Philippines because of cultural factors, which deprives them of the rights guaranteed them by our laws. There is also the shameful and unjustifiable commutation of the two life sentences of convicted rapist Romeo Jalosjos. Jalosjos, who was convicted of raping an 11-year-old girl in 1996, became a free man in March of 2009, after serving only ten years for his crime. Clearly, while justice has slowly been given to victims of gender inequality, many seek for it still, and it is imperative that the Philippines continue to work to fully realize the goal of gender parity.

In improving gender equality in the Philippines, one must also closely inspect the deplorable discrimination being suffered by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, or LGBT, in our society. Unfortunately, the Philippines is resistant to welcoming LGBT the same way it has women. To find proof of this fact, one need only peruse the Commission on Election’s resolution denying accreditation to Ang Ladlad, a partylist that aims to forward the concerns and agenda of the Filipino LGBT community. The resolution was rightfully chastised in the blogosphere (for example, in this brilliant piece by Marck Rimorin) and elsewhere for heavily quoting religious scripture to justify the Comelec’s decision, when the Philippines is supposed to be respectful of the separation of church and state. It only magnifies the fact that even our own government is having trouble getting its foot out of the muck of the past and into the promise of a tolerant and welcoming society. Take this YouTube video of an American public service announcement from the 1950s warning boys about homosexuals as though being gay was a crime; is the Philippines in 2010 what America was 50 years ago?

Improving gender equality in the Philippines will require the cooperation of all sectors of society. Tolerance must be imbued in children through the school curriculum; offices must ensure that respect for all genders is observed by employees; the officialdom must enact measures and laws to bring justice to those wronged because of their gender and give equal opportunities and rights to all citizens of our country, regardless of their sexual preference or identity.

We dream about progress and about reaching first world status in ten years, but if we cannot even bring our society into the present from its past steeped with discrimination, how can we expect to make advancements anywhere else?

Image credits: Cory Aquino photo from WikiPilipinas; gay marriage photo from Flickr / nerdcoregirl.

SOURCES:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_women_suffrage_plebiscite,_1937

http://www.wikigender.org/index.php/Gender_Equality_in_the_Philippines#Family_Code

http://en.wikipilipinas.org/index.php?title=Corazon_Aquino

http://genderindex.org/ranking

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20070613-70977/Jalosjos%92_2_life_terms_commuted

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleid=450186

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22499885/Comelec-Resolution-Ang-Ladlad

http://www.thepoc.net/commentaries/2945-chura-niyo.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-zm9o-J29E

http://en.wikipilipinas.org/index.php?title=Image:Corazon_Aquino.jpg