Laws from the heart (Sabong News)
Author
Manila Bulletin
Date
MARCH 08 2022
When I was elected to the Senate of the Philippines in 2016, there was no doubt that, together with health, women’s rights would be on top of my agenda. It was — and continues to be — very personal for me. My idealism and go-for-broke emotional investment shines through the legal technicalities. I am a woman who writes laws from the heart. I guess, in a way, being a hopeless romantic has served me well as a legislator.
As a lawmaker and a solo parent, I often ask myself what I would do to make my dreams real. My answer has always been, “Everything legally possible.”
I dream of a Philippines where the rights and welfare of our mothers, sisters, and daughters are respected and protected in every sense. I envision a Philippines where every opportunity for improvement is made accessible to women of all ages and all walks of life. I want a Philippines where women aren’t dismissed as “too soft,” “too weak,” or “too emotional” each time we want to take the lead. These are at the core of the pro-women bills that I have authored and supported.
We’ve had victories with laws like the Expanded Maternity Leave Law, the Safe Spaces Act or Bawal Bastos Law, and the Kalusugan at Nutrisyon ng Mag-Nanay Act. I have also filed the Expanded Solo Parents Welfare Bill, which aims to lessen the extraordinary burden of solo parents — 95 percent of whom are women.
There is still so much to do and it will take all of us to get things done. It takes a sisterhood to change the world.
We women must look beyond our personal struggles and do what we can for those in crisis. As poet Audre Lorde said: “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” There are women being forced into prostitution, deceived by human traffickers, and victimized by their employers abroad. We must speak for them and support the efforts to rescue them.
I also want to make a plea to parents to raise their sons to be allies of women. I was lucky to be married to one. My late husband Frank — a Philippine Military Academy (PMA) graduate who served the Philippine National Police (PNP) — was a hands-on dad who was very supportive of my career. He was definitely an ally of women, so it wasn’t difficult for our eldest child, our only son Kiko, to be one as well. My son, though, was just on the cusp of adolescence when Frank passed away in 2005. So, Kiko was left with me and his three sisters. I guess, that further ensured that he would have empathy for the struggles of women. He had no choice. He was surrounded.
It is necessary for us to teach our sons to reject misogynist behavior. We must make it clear to them that it is never cool or funny to participate in activities that objectify women. It’s time to cancel the “Boys will be boys” excuse. This is the only way that we can wipe out this plague. It may not happen during my lifetime, but I have faith that there will come a time when not a single Filipino boy or man will laugh at a rape joke, no matter who cracks it.
As a woman living in the here and now, with misogyny still rampant, I continue to be fueled by hope. The trick is to persist in fighting for what is right. After all, it has taken decades for us to get to where we are. Surely, we — and the next generations of women’s rights advocates — can keep pushing for lasting change however long it takes. We won’t stop until every single woman gets a chance to be what she wants to be, unhampered by the walls that we and those before us had to break down.
I pray that I will be given a chance to break down more walls for my fellow Pinays. I know that my heart has a lot more laws to write.
