Duterte calls for united effort to address ‘strategic needs’ of women

President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday called for a united effort “to address the strategic needs of women,” including the proper implementation of the law that seeks to eliminate discrimination against them.

Duterte made the call as he joined the Filipino people in celebrating International Women’s Day.

“This important occasion reminds us all to pave the way for an enabling environment for women to be empowered and to make sure that the Magna Carta for Women is properly implemented at all levels of government,” he said.

Enacted by then-President and now Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2009, the Magna Carta for Women (Republic Act 9710) spells out the rights of every Filipino woman such as protection from all forms of violence, including those committed by the state, equal treatment before the law, non-discrimination in education opportunities and employment in the field of military, police and non-discriminatory and non-derogatory portrayal of women in media and film.

That same law, however, has been cited by Duterte’s critics to hit out at the President’s previous remarks against women.

Various quarters had criticized Duterte for his many misogynistic remarks, including linking women’s beauty to rape, ordering troops to shoot female rebels in the vagina, joking about the gang rape and murder of an Australian missionary, and telling soldiers to rape women in Marawi at the height of the military campaign against the Islamic State-inspired Maute group that laid siege to the city.

He also drew flak for claiming that he “touched” his maid when he was a teenager and kissing a Filipino woman on stage during his visit to South Korea in June last year.

Many of the top officials and individuals Duterte has butted heads with or denigrated have been women, including Vice President Leni Robredo, Senator Leila de Lima, then-Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales, missionary Sister Patricia Fox, UN Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard, International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, and Maria Lourdes Sereno before she was ousted as chief justice of the Supreme Court.

After Sereno's removal from office, Duterte said that the next top magistrate should "of course" not be a woman.

Malacañang, however, said that the President is not anti-women, citing the appointments of women to government posts including Sereno’s successor then-Chief Justice Teresita Leonardo de Castro, Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat, and then-Acting Social Welfare Secretary Virginia Orogo.

Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo said the Duterte administration has been at the “forefront in advancing women’s rights in the Philippines.”

Panelo said it is under the current administration when the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Global Gender Gap Report 2018 placed the Philippines as the most gender equal nation in Asia and ranked it as the eighth in the list of best countries in the world to be a woman.

The Palace official also mentioned the recent enactment of laws on expanded maternity leave and telecommuting, which creates an alternative work setup that most Filipino women may take advantage of.

Panelo also noted the law that ensures the health safety of both mother and child in the early stages after giving birth and the President’s approval of the implementation plan for the national program on family  planning.

The President, meanwhile, pushed for the creation of platforms to discuss best practices, gaps and challenges in pursuing gender and development in all local government units.

He said any development effort should be “inclusive and gender responsive.”

“Together, let us work in solidarity with all appropriate institutions to address the strategic needs of women and recognize their innumerable contributions to society,” Duterte said. — RSJ, GMA News