Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women

UNITED NATIONS CEDAW Convention on the Elimination Distr. of All Forms of Discrimination GENERAL against Women CEDAW/C/13/Add.l7 25 January 1989 Original: ENGLISH Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) CONSIDERATION OF REPORTS SUBMITTED BY STATESSPARTIES UNDER ARTICLE 18 OF THE CONVENTION Second Periodic Reports of States parties Addendum PHILIPPINES v. 89-50644 Digitized by UN Library Geneva - ii CONTENTS PAGES PART I (General).................................. .............. 1 - 9 PART II (Specific information in relation to each provision of the Convention) Article 2. Policy of eliminating discrimination against women.................................. 10 - 19 Article 3. Full development and advancement of women - Statement of Policy............. 20 - 24 Article 4. Accelerating de facto equality................ 25-29 Article 5. Elimination of stereotyping of roles.......... 30-36 Article 6. Suppression of traffic on women and exploitation of prostitution.............. 37 - 56 Article 7. Equal rights with men in political and public life................................ 57 - 72 Article 8. Women as government representatives . in international conferences .................. 73- 76 Article 9. Nationality. Equal rights with men to acquire, change or retain nationality ........ 77 - 78 Article 10. Education...................................... 79 - 102 Article 11. Employment.................................... 103 - 145 Article 12. Health Care and Nutrition .................... 146-164 Article 13. Other areas of economic and social life .... 165 - 172 Article 14. Rural Women.................................. 173 - 187 Article 15. Women and the Law........................... 188 - 190 Article 16. Marriage and Family......................... 191 - 203 REFERENCES 204 - 206 Digitized by UN Library Geneva 1 UN CONVENTION ON THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN Second Periodic Report PHILIPPINES, 1987 Part I. (a) Describe the actual, general, social, economic, political arid legal framework within which the Philippines approaches thé elimination of discrimination against womm in all its forms, as defined in the Convention. (b) Legal and other measures adopted to implement the Convention or absence as well as any effect which ratification has had on the State Party's actual, general, social, economic, political and légal framework since the entry into force of the Convention. The Republic of the Philippines is an archipelago of 7,100 islands covering about 300,000 sq. km. Its population, counted at 48,090,460 in 1980, was esti mated at 54,668,332 in 1985 at an average annual growth rate of 2.47%. Women form 49.8% of the total. The country is geopolitically divided into 13 regions; each region is composed of provinces ; each province is divided into towns and chartered cities which in turn are divided into the smallest political units called barangays. A province is headed by a govémor, a municipality and a city by a mayor, and a barangay by a captain - all elected by their constituents. Legislative positions from the barangay council to the Senate are other elective posts, in addition to those of the president and the vice president and other vice executive positions in the country's local governments. Women participate in the administration of both the local and national governments not only as voters but also as officials in responsible positions. For the first time since the Philippines gained its independence in 1946, a woman head of state - President Corazón C. Aquino - was elected to the highest post in the country in February 1986. Other women are now holding high rank ing positions in the government. Digitized by UN Library Geneva - 2 - The recent national elections witnessed the birth of an all-women political party called KAIBA, an acronym for Kàbâbaihan para sa Inang Bayan (Women for the Motherland). One of the five candidates fielded in the last elections won a seat in the House of Congress. Women's status in society traces its beginnings to Philippine pre-colonial times. According to historians, women held positions equal to men in the family and in the community. Daughters could succeed to become chiefs of barangays,* engage in business, and wield power as priestesses. Women played important roles in the Philippine Revolution against Spain. They took arms with the men and fought beside them. In the Katipunan, a revo lutionary organization of patriotic Filipinos, women served in responsible positions and suffered untold hardships. A number of them emerged as heroines of the Revolution. Colonial rule changed women's status. Spanish laws relegated them to subordinate positions. The Americans opened to women equal access to education but also introduced measures which, though intended to protect working women, resulted in discriminatory practices against them. But this proved to be no serious handicap to Filipino women's participation in community and national activities. They formed organizations and. worked for political rights. With the support of all-male legislatures, they secured an amendment to the paraphernal law to enable married women to manage and dispose of their property; they won the right to vote and be voted for, exercising suffrage for the first time in 1937. The first women's civic organization was formed in 1905, and the first coalition of women's groups was bom in 1950. In more recent history, women led movements against foreign imperialism and domestic feudalism. During the dark days of martial law, over a hundred women's groups protested against the administration's handling of national and local affairs. Significantly, women's groups played a major role in the EDSA Revolution of 1986 which ended the twenty-year rule of Ferdinand Marcos. *Originally composed of the captain of the boat called "balangay", members of his family and relatives who settled in the islands now making up the Philippines. Digitized by UN Library Geneva - 3 - On the legal front, efforts to expunge the statute books of discriminatory provisions registered tremendous gains in 1987. For the first time, the new Constitution explicitly provides for the fundamental equality between vanen and men and cites the women1s role in nation-building (Art. II Sec. 14); recognizes women's maternal and economic roles (Art. XIII, Sec. 14), and women's special health needs (Art. XIII, Sec. 11); declares as natural-bom citizens children bom of Filipino mothers (before the 1973 Constitution) and who elect Philippine citizenship at the age of majority; and allows Filipino women mar ried to aliens to retain their citizenship if they choose to do so (Art. IV), thereby correcting the inequitous provisions in the earlier laws. Closely following the ratification of the new Constitution was the signing on July 17, 1987 of Executive Order 227 entitled "The New Family Code of the Philippines", a product of some eight years of work by eminent lawyers, jurists and legal scholars. The new Code eliminates many of the discriminatory provi sions in the Spanish colonial law-based Civil Code of the Philippines. It is too early to assess the impact of these new provisions upgrading the status of Filipino women. How much would be translated to reality remains to be seen. Lessons from the past indicate that the laws granting equality rights to women de jure were not necessarily followed in practice. Until"the present, Philippine society is still deeply-steeped in traditional attitudes and stereotypes which pervade the hone, the school, the workplace, and even the government. The men, as much as the women, adhere to beliefs that the men are the stronger of the sexes and ascribe roles for each. These stereotypes are highly manifest in the employment positions that women have, the school courses that they take, the training they go into, and the salary they receive. The government of Mrs. Aquino, while it has spelled out its commitment to women through the constitutional mandate, has laid down its priorities center ing on the economic and the political - the rebuilding of the economy and the restoration of peace and order throughout the archipelago. The major economic issues demanding immediate attention are the country's $28 billion debt, the agrarian reform program, unemployment and industrial unrest, and widespread economic poverty. Threats to the country's peace and stability mainly, come from the New People's Army (NPA) insurgents, from the Muslim Mindanao and Cordillera secessionists, from the discontented and fractious military, and from other lawless elements which take advantage of the situation. The bulk of the work of pushing women's advancement is left to the government bodies assigned for this purpose such as thë National Commission on the Role of Fili Digitized by UN Library Geneva pino vanen, the Bureau of Women and Young Workers under the Department of U Labor, the Home Economics Division of the Bureau of Agricultural Extension, and the newly created Bureau of Women in the Department of Social Welfare and Development. (c) Institutions or authorities which havq, as their task to ensure that the principle of equality between men and women is complied with in practice, and what remedies are available tó women who have suffered discrimination. By constitutional mandate, the State is bound to "ensure the fundamental equality before the law of women and men." (Art. II Sec. 14) Private companies are required by law, under the Labor Code''of the Philippines (Presidential Decree No. 442 amended), to implement

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