Participation of Women in Philippine Politics and Society: A Situationer A Paper written by Mylene Hega, Secretary General of MAKALAYA(Women Workers Network) for the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Philippine Office, March 2003 About Us Core Themes Activities Publications Online Materials Introduction This paper is intended to provide an overview of the status of women in the Philippine society especially in the aspect of politics and the labor market. This should be considered as a work in progress which the author aims to further develop as a comprehensive situation paper that can both provide the reader a consolidated picture of the gender equality challenge in the country and motivate them on the need to contribute in changing the so-called“divides and mirages” in Philippine sexual politics. FES Dialogue on Globalization FES International Policy Analysis Unit FES Journal ­International Politics and Society According to the latest gender disaggregated data, women constitute 37.9-million (49.6%) of the 76.5 million Filipinos as of May 2000. Almost 15.5-million are between ages 15 to 40 reflecting a young female population. However, while women constitute nearly half of the population, its status in the Philippine society is still characterized by sharp contradictions of obvious gains, on one hand, and glaring inequalities on the other. One can find both major advancements for women’s role and graphic gender inequality in specific areas of the society. The Human Development Report 2002(UNDP) revealed that 35% of Filipino administrators and managers are women-- which is one of the highest in the world. Additionally, approximately 17.2% of all the legislative seats are occupied by women and 2/3 of professionals and technical workers are women. This puts the country’s Gender Empowerment Measure(GEM) of 0.523 as the highest in East Asia. But a dark side of these gains exists. Thousands of women are discriminated in employment by virtue of marriage and parenthood. Many more are contracted for 5 months to avoid regularization of employment while a glass ceiling for women pervades in many sectors of the society – especially in the fields of politics and the economy. Although the Philippines appears to be ahead of its neighboring countries by having 2 women presidents already, major hurdles are still in place for women to gain a firmer foothold in politics. It is still basically an elite-male dominated political landscape. While there is a perceptible increase in the number of women elected into government posts, assumption to institutional leadership does not necessarily translate into the expected degree of political clout. The question of resources also affects women’s access to decision-making positions since women and men do not enjoy the same access to resources that yields power. The lack of economic power, similarly, deprives women of their rights and opportunities. Even the framework for sectoral political representation has evolved into missed opportunity. The party-list system, which provides for a focused women representation in the House of Representatives, is not useful nowadays due to the failure of any women-based party to get any seat in the 2001 elections. Fortunately, this is compensated by incremental increases in women politicians and bureaucrats at the national and local level. Additionally, the presence of a broad and active women’s movement keeps the gender discourse alive with issues like reproductive rights, anti­abuse of women in intimate relationship(AWIR), domestic violence, anti-prostitution and trafficking, anti-rape and incest, equal employment laws, creation of Commission