by LALA ORDENES-CASCOLAN

IN 1996, in celebration of its 30th anniversary, the all-female Soroptimist International Manila was in search of a guest speaker who was known for championing women’s causes, had contributed to the women’ s struggle, and had affected the lives of millions of Filipinas in a positive way. It didn’t take its members long to come up with a unanimous choice. The only problem was, they had chosen a he.

Inviting a man as guest speaker posed a problem to the group, which had a long tradition of keeping its activities exclusive to women. But it was decided that Senator Raul Roco was it, and he was named an “honorary woman” so he could grace the group’s anniversary celebration.

Indeed, women have much to thank the late lawmaker for his pioneering pro-women legislation, including the Women in Development and Nation-Building Act, the Anti-Sexual Harassment Law, the Anti-Rape Law, and the Child and Family Courts Act. But even back then, many wondered why the Soroptimists wound up with a man for their guest speaker. Were there no female legislators with the same qualifications?

Roco was a former congressman; he would also serve three terms as senator. During his years as a lawmaker — from 1987 to 2000 — a total of 106 legislative posts were held by women: 14 seats in the Upper House and 92 in the Lower House. Today 50 of the 238-member House of Representatives are women (21 percent of the total House membership), the most number of female legislators in the post-Marcos era. One of the five deputy speakers of the House is also a woman. Yet more than a decade after they picked a man to be their guest of honor, the Soroptimists may still be hard-pressed in inviting a female legislator who is as identified with women’s issues as Roco was.

Party-list representative Ana Theresia Hontiveros-Baraquel of the Akbayan Citizens’ Action Party says there is a potential women’s vote in Congress that could be harnessed into a solid bloc to push for pro-women laws. But Hontiveros-Baraquel, who women’s groups say is one of the easiest to invite to their activities, is the first to admit: “The fact that the lawmaker is biologically female does not automatically mean she would have a feminist perspective. It is not biologically deterministic that way.”

In fact, of the more than a dozen laws passed between the Eighth and 12th Congresses that women’s groups consider as important to their causes, at least seven garnered a higher percentage of support from male legislators than the female lawmakers. (see Table 1) Just one of the three women members of the Lower House who are now on their fifth term can claim to have championed a pioneering pro-women law. Republic Act 7600, which provides incentives to health institutions with rooming-in and breastfeeding practices, also had no female among its authors and sponsors.

Table 1: Voting on ‘Feminist Legislation,’ By Gender * Percentages are based on the number of male or female legislators who voted for the passage of the law over the total number of male or female legislators. ** Excluded are RAs 7688 and 7882 (Ninth Congress), as well as RA 8171(10th Congress), all of which had no voting records.
LAW**	CONGRESS	FEMALE		MALE
		Number	%*	Number	%*
RA 6725	8th	13	68.42	123	66.13
RA 6949	8th	15	78.95	137	73.66
RA 6955	8th	5	26.32	102	54.84
RA 6972	8th	14	73.68	135	72.58
RA 7192	8th	12	63.16	120	64.52
RA 7322	8th	16	84.21	109	58.60
RA 7600	8th	16	84.21	109	58.60
RA 7877	9th	15	65.22	131	74.43
RA 8353	10th	16	66.67	146	76.44
RA 8505	10th	12	50.00	102	53.40
RA 8972	11th	12	44.44	118	61.14
RA 9208	12th	27	65.85	140	74.87
RA 9262	12th	22	53.66	92	49.20

FOR SURE, the Philippine legislative landscape has seen some major improvements with respect to women’s rights in the last two decades, and the environment seems to have changed a lot for women. Women’s rights activist and newspaper columnist Rina Jimenez-David even says that when she was out campaigning for the party-list group Abanse! Pinay in the last elections, “a woman professor asked me if there was really still a need for a women’s party list since there are laws covering almost all women’s issues.”

Obviously, Jimenez-David and other women’s rights advocates believe there are still important pieces of legislation regarding women’s welfare that need to be passed. Carolyn Sobritchea, executive director of the University of the Philippines Center for Women's Studies (UPCWS), cites as an example the stalled Reproductive Health Care bill, which she says recognizes the rights of women over their bodies. She also says that although legal separation and the annulment of marriage are now allowed under the Family Code, many women would like a law that could provide more protection and security for single mothers and their children. There is a need as well to look into the rights of women in the agricultural and informal sector, she says.

“We're happy and we're not happy,” says Sobritchea. “We have passed 16 groundbreaking laws on women, (among) the most progressive in the world. But we still have our work cut out for us.”

What some find curious, however, is that even previous “pro-women” laws got their boost not from female legislators, but from the males. For instance, it was in the Eighth Congress where so far the most laws addressing women’s concerns were passed in the post-Marcos era, among them Republic Act 6955 (which sought to make illegal matchmaking local women to foreign nationals by mail-order). RA 6955 even saw only 26 percent of the women representatives voting for it, compared to about 55 percent of the men.

At the time, there were only 19 female lawmakers in the Lower House, or a mere nine percent of the representatives — the lowest so far in the post-Marcos era. (see Table 2) Indications are these female legislators were reluctant to be too identified with women’s causes. Jimenez-David recalls, “Many of them first-timers, they confessed to feeling they had to first ‘earn their spurs’ as representatives of a general constituency, and that championing women’s issues might limit their influence and appeal.”

“But that was in the past,” she says. “(Women) in both (Houses) have in the years since been able to pass women-friendly laws and turn the legislature into women-friendly environments.”

Table 2: Members of the House of Representatives, By Gender
CONGRESS	TOTAL	FEMALE	MALE
8th	205	19	186
9th	199	23	176
10th	215	24	191
11th	220	27	193
12th	228	41	187
13th	237	35	202
14th	238	50	188

Hontiveros-Baraquel, though, says that even today only the party-list organizations Abanse! Pinay and Gabriela Women’s Party could be counted on as a solid vote for pro-women legislation — leaving out her own organization, which supports the implementation of the 30-percent quota for women in all decision-making bodies. Hontiveros-Baraquel herself actively supported the anti-prostitution bill in the last Congress, as well as House Bill 5496, which aims to strengthen women’s participation and representation in elective and appointive positions. Yet she is more well-known for her human-rights advocacies.

Even Senator Loren Legarda, whose platform includes women’s causes, is not that identified with women’s concerns. This is even though she co-authored and sponsored the Anti-Violence Against Women and Their Children Act of 2004 (RA 9262) — the consolidated version of the Anti-Abuse of Women in Intimate Relations bill and the Anti-Domestic Violence bill — and the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act, which was passed into law as RA 9208.

“Generally, the members of the Senate vote based on issues, which does not necessarily have any relation with gender,” comments Legarda. “But I believe that there is a women’s vote when the issue to be resolved is on women’s rights and welfare.”