by JAILEEN F. JIMENO

BALLROOM DANCING. Tocino-making. Cross-stitching. Fruit preservation. In the name of gender awareness, government agencies are holding lessons in these and are charging the expenses running to thousands—sometimes hundreds of thousands—of pesos at a time to their respective office's Gender and Development (GAD) or Women's budget.

Just a few years ago, women's groups had considered the inclusion of the GAD allotment in the national budget as one of their biggest legislative wins ever. Indeed, since 1995, all state agencies have been mandated to set aside a minimum of five percent of their total appropriations for "programs, projects, and activities designed to address gender issues."

Like many of the country's gender-related laws, however, the GAD provision is suffering from faulty implementation that has resulted only in making a mockery of its aims.

In the last three years, only a third of the bureaucracy has complied with the GAD clause. Yet some P7.88 billion have been claimed as GAD expenses since 1995, with most of the money going to projects and activities that have little to do with what the allotment was supposed to be for.

While the allocation is also known as the Women's Budget, its proponents had intended it to benefit all genders in the bureaucracy. True, it hopes to make state agencies more sensitive to the interests of its female clients. But it is not meant to favor women; rather, the GAD allotment is aimed at balancing government policies that have long been tilted toward men.

"It's not being feminist, it's the perspective of equality," explains Senator Raul Roco, who was one of the provision's strong supporters. "The principle there is that when the law is not fair, you try to equalize."

But this seems lost on the few offices that have used their GAD budget—just 69 out of over 300 state agencies in 1998. One office, for example, set up a drinking fountain and with that considered itself as having complied with the GAD provision. At the Bureau of the Treasury, classes were held in bonsai, orchid growing, flower making and jewelry appraisal, as well as aerobics and even ballroom dancing. The total for all these came up to P128,500, which was charged to the Women's Budget.

Officials at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) seem to share their Treasury counterparts' view of GAD. In 1998, various embassies spent a total of P4.3 million of the DFA's GAD, including some P678,300 worth of cooking lessons and computer classes charged by the embassy in Brazil. The embassy in Madrid proved to be more frugal, chalking up only P297,000 for courses in sewing, cooking, nursing, beauty culture and language. In Manila, the DFA spent P47,000 for livelihood training courses, which it declared as its compliance to the GAD provision.

"Kasi ang orientation pa rin ng ilan pagdating sa gender awareness, livelihood programs (That's because some still equate gender awareness with livelihood programs)," says Loren Umali of the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women (NCRFW), which, along with the National Economic Development Agency, had thought up the GAD allotment. Umali says that attitude can be traced back to the Marcos era, when all gender-related programs were aimed mainly at helping women earn some money.

Lawmakers who pushed for the GAD fund—first broached at the Upper House by then Senator Leticia Ramos-Shahani—admit many offices are not using it "properly." But some of them say the matter is now in the hands of the women in the bureaucracy.

"Look," says Roco, "I can bring you to the water but I cannot force you to drink. I helped you fight for your rights, but you have to assert it. That's the responsibility of every individual in a democracy."

Observers though say the GAD allocation has become easy prey to misuse—and even abuse—partly because the provision itself uses vague language and fails to specify where the funds are to come from and how they should be used. Thus, while some agencies with small budgets assume that the five percent minimum should be taken from their whole budget, agencies with billions of pesos to spend have resorted to taking it from their maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE).

It has not helped that unlike a regular budget provision, the GAD does not undergo Congressional scrutiny before the money is sent out. Umali also says a Department of Budget and Management (DBM) circular mandating all government offices to set aside 20 percent of their budget as savings has made compliance to the GAD provision all the more unpalatable. "Kokonti na nga daw ang pera, mababawasan pa (They say the funds already aren't much, and they're still making cuts)," says the officer-in-charge of the NCRFW's monitoring and evaluation division.

As a result, some agencies have taken to writing any expense, no matter how oblique the project or activity is from the allotment's aims, on the GAD sheet just so they can claim compliance with the law. Even activities that should be covered by another part of the budgets of offices have ended up as GAD claims. Some embassies, for example, have used the fund for repatriating workers in strife-torn countries, when the expenses for such moves should have come from their regular budget.

At the National Security Council (NSC), more than half of the P1.25 million set aside as its 1998 GAD budget was used to pay for the transportation and lodging expenses of "top level officials" attending overseas conferences that had little to do with gender issues. The NSC also spent P150,000 of its GAD money on a sportsfest, as well as lessons in aerobics and self-defense. When castigated by the NCRFW for misusing the fund, an NSC finance official retorted, "Matagal na naming ginagawa 'yan (We've been doing that for a long time)."

But the NCRFW had no objections to a P30,000 GAD claim submitted by the NSC for a stress management seminar. According to Norma Sayoto, chair of NSC's GAD technical working group, it had been one activity that was attractive to all employees.

"Kasi sa NCRFW, if that will start their interest in the Women's Budget, especially the men, that's fine," says Umali, explaining why the stress management seminar was allowed as a GAD claim. "But it should not happen yearly."

"We don't ignore the fact that some agencies do abuse it," she also says of the GAD fund, admitting that it is one of the easiest state allotments "to corrupt."

Still, Umali says the NCRFW expects all agencies to "evolve" in their use of the GAD allocations and eventually "graduate" from annual seminars on GAD itself and gender related topics to other activities and projects.

But that is assuming that the government offices know of the existence of the provision. For instance, the NSC, despite being the home of state snoops who collate and interpret intelligence reports, became aware of the GAD provision only in 1997, when the NCRFW invited some of its officials to a seminar on how they could best use the allotment.

The Department of National Defense, which gets one of the biggest chunks of the annual budget, complied with the GAD provision three years after it was implemented. None of the major military services under it, though, has followed its lead. Then again, neither has the Office of the President done anything regarding its GAD allocation.

"To me, dapat iyong lahat ng Cabinet members, all department and bureau heads, dapat yugyugin (should be shaken)," says Roco, who disagrees with the NCRFW's view that non-compliance with the GAD provision comes with no sanctions.

"It's part of the GAA (General Appropriations Act)," he adds. "Theoretically I can sue them before the Ombudsman. But if I were to do that, half the bureaucracy might be suspended."

To be sure, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is not among the agencies Roco is upset with. In fact, six years before the GAD provision, the DENR had created a Technical Working Committee on Women to review all the office's policies and ensure that these respond to the needs of its women employees and clients.

After the review, then DENR Secretary Fulgencio Factoran issued a series of memos and orders seeking to equalize the rights and responsibilities of the agency's personnel and clients. One of these orders provides for the awarding of Certificates of Stewardship Contracts to both spouses, not just to the head of the household, who was almost always male.

The move also benefited female DENR employees. "Women are now being lined up for promotion wherever it will take them," says Marlea Muñez, DENR assistant director for special concerns. "They're being given the right to refuse, unlike in the past when they are automatically removed from the list because in all likelihood, they will turn down a field assignment anyway."

With the coming of the GAD provision in 1995, DENR employees were provided with more fuel for the machinery the office already had to increase gender sensitivity in all its field offices. Aside from holding seminars, the agency has also embarked on a research on women's participation in community forestry, forest plantation plans and other DENR programs. The result is the integration of women and women's concerns in every project.

To equalize the role of both spouses in child-rearing, the department has encouraged even male employees to take their children to the office's daycare center. The DENR is also the first among government agencies to hammer out a set of implementing rules and regulations on the anti-sexual harassment law.

Muñez admits that some DENR field offices still charge expenses for aerobics classes to the Women's Budget. But she is confident compliance will improve. "We are slowly educating our people on what can be covered by their GAD budget," she says, "and we subsidize their projects if it cannot be supported by their funds alone."

The DENR is so assured that it has achieved a modicum of gender equality within the department that the thrust of its GAD projects has shifted more toward benefiting the DENR's clients.

In 1997, the department spent a total of P46.244 million for GAD-related projects, representing 3.43 percent of the agency's MOOE. But Muñez says, "The ideal picture for GAD is when five percent becomes zero because gender-sensitive policies are already in the structure."

The DENR's experience is helping people like Umali remain optimistic about the GAD allocation. "A little more persistence (and) the fund will fully serve its purpose," says the NCRFW official.

To speed things up, though, the NCRFW since 1997 has been summoning women in each office to a seminar on GAD and how it should be used. It hopes the lectures will enable women to identify projects they themselves see as beneficial to them.

Gender-specific programs outlined by the NCRFW include the training of women in non-traditional trades, skills training on construction, maintenance and repair, expansion of organizations involving solo parents, hospital-based crisis centers for women, firming up policies for occupational health and safety measures for pregnant and lactating women.

The response from some offices has been heartening. Although not in total control of the GAD budget at this time, women at the NSC plan to embark on a project that will provide their office with a database on women. According to Cecilia Pacis, a member of the NSC's GAD committee, the information "will provide us with a basis on defining the role of women and children in peacekeeping."

Meanwhile, plans are afoot for Congress to become an oversight committee that will review how each agency uses its GAD allocation. Umali points out that since government has cut down on its public service funds for 1999, the GAD provision is the perfect tool to help chip away the ill effects of government's belt-tightening.

She argues, "Where else can we get a fund that that will benefit half of the bureaucracy and half of the population government serves?"