I made the manifestation to convey our concern that in choosing the new leadership of this body, we seem to have ignored gender equity as a principle that any decent parliament or Congress must uphold. Of the officers and leaders that we chose last week, from the Speaker of the House, Deputy Speakers, Secretary General, to the Sergeant-at-arms, none is a woman. 

Ginoong Speaker, never mind the fact that women lawmakers comprise 22% of this chamber, with 54 female members of the House of Representatives out of the total 236. It is and it should be the principle that matters: gender equity requires that leadership selection should be all-inclusive and non-discriminatory. Women lawmakers have co-equal powers and duties as our male counterparts; thus, our participation in choosing the leadership of the House should be meaningful. We are not mere members of Congress who have the right to cast our votes in choosing the officers of the House. We should also be seen as potential Speaker, Deputy Speakers, Secretary General, and Sergeant-at-arms.

As an active member of the International Parliamentary Union, which monitors gender balance in parliaments worldwide, it is incumbent on this chamber to be pro-active in increasing the participation of women in Congress. In IPU’s database on women representation in parliaments, the House of Representatives has always fared below the recommended minimum standards on parliamentary gender balance. In 1998, for instance, only 12% of the members of the House of Representatives, or 27 out of 217, were women. It went up to 18% in 2001, with 40 out of 227 women, but it declined again in 2004, with women comprising only 15% of the House, or 36 out of 236.

Ginoong Speaker, if we are indeed truly keen on increasing the participation of women in politics and governance, we should strive to increase the role of women legislators in the affairs of the House. AKBAYAN calls on Congress to break the glass ceiling that blocks the possibility of increasing the role of women legislators in our own leadership structures.

There is no dearth of exemplary women parliamentarians to prove that, if given the chance or an equal playing field, women have the capacity to lead. The current Speaker of US House of Representatives, for instance, is Nancy Pelosi, a representative from California known for her uncompromising brand of politics that made it possible to consolidate democrats in Congress even when they were still in the minority. In the UK, Labor MP Clare Short held a key Cabinet position during the term of Tony Blair, and became a symbol of peace when she resigned from the Cabinet over the decision of the British government to join the war in Iraq. Helen Clark leads the Labour Party in the parliament of New Zealand, and has been serving as the Prime Minister of the country for several years now. In Sweden, Social Democratic MP Anna Lindh was regarded as the next Prime Minister of that Scandinavian country until she was murdered in 2003. 

This chamber is also not lacking of women senior members or career officials who have the potential to become House leaders. During the 11^th Congress, we actually had a woman Deputy Speaker, then Rep. Daisy Avance Fuentes. For this term, we have Rep. Darlene Antonino-Custodio, whose leadership in the minority is commendable. In the majority, Rep. Cynthia Villar has been an active woman legislator whose leadership in pushing for women’s issues is admirable. Rep. Nerissa Soon-Ruiz and Rep. Janet Garin, who are active woman members of Congress, have exhibited passion and rigor in pushing for the promotion of reproductive health, cheaper medicines, and the Magna Carta for Women, which are bread and butter issues for women. In the House Secretariat, we should give a chance to the likes of Atty. Arlene Dada-Arnaldo, who has the track record, competence, and rigor of a Secretary General.

Now that the House leadership has decided to elect a woman Deputy Speaker, we in AKBAYAN hope that member who would be elected to the position would exercise her leadership to push for the women’s agenda. In all honesty, a single woman in the leadership is not enough: we should aspire to increase it to at least 30% in the near future to follow the internationally recommended minimum standards for women representation. Nevertheless, this position should be an embodiment of equality and women’s rights, not of tokenism and patronage. After the bitter Speakership race last Monday, we could only hope and appeal to the House leadership that the position would not be used merely to settle political debts.

Let us also disabuse the minds of the public of the notion that we are creating a new post, the Deputy Speaker for Women. This is not true. If this was the intent of the House leadership, then let this representation be the first to say that the decision smacks of tokenism and even ghettoism. Each and every member of the House leadership, regardless of gender, has the duty and obligation to tackle women’s issues, exercise gender sensitivity, and promote women’s rights – including the male Deputy Speakers, whom we don’t call Deputy Speakers for Men.

The new Deputy Speaker has the responsibility of expediting the passage of measures that promote women’s rights. Her primary duty is to correct a grave error committed by the 13^th Congress to Filipino women – not a single measure on women’s rights was enacted during the previous Congress. This should not be the case for this term, and I urge the 14^th Congress to prioritize women’s issues. Parliaments are supposed to represent the composition of the society, and we in AKBAYAN challenge this chamber to prove wrong the notion that Filipino women are neither sufficiently represented nor meaningfully heard in our legislature.

Ginoong Speaker, AKBAYAN hopes that the woman Deputy Speaker would work on the early enactment of the following bills, which are long overdue and should be in our legislative priorities:

·       The reproductive health bill, which establishes a rights-based national policy on reproductive health. If enacted, this bill would grant women additional information and services for our reproductive health;

·       The Magna Carta for Women, which creates a national policy framework to protect the rights of Filipino women;

·       The Anti-Prostitution Bill, which decriminalizes prostituted women and shifts criminal liability to the sellers and buyers of prostitution;

·       The Magna Carta for Rural Women, which recognizes the needs of women in rural areas and establishes a gender-oriented framework for rural development, and;

·       The Gender Balance bill, which establishes a quota system to allow for the meaningful participation of women in politics and governance.

All of these measures would harmonize our laws with international human rights instruments that affirm and uphold women’s rights and fundamental freedoms. These include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, among others. 

The Gender Balance Bill is of particular importance in the issue of increasing women’s participation in Congress, Ginoong Speaker. The quota system that it introduces is an affirmative action to give women an initial break in politics and governance. Countries like Norway, Denmark, and Sweden have implemented quotas for several years, resulting in high representation for women in their respective parliaments and institutions of governance. The African National Congress also has enforced an internal quota system for women in the party, a landmark decision that led to a significant jump in the number of women in South Africa’s parliament and local governments. South Africa is now number 14 in IPU’s list of countries with high representation of women in parliament. I am proud to announce that AKBAYAN is also implementing the same system internally, with at least 30% of the party’s leadership at all levels, from our chapters at the barangay level to our list of nominees, reserved for women. We urge the other parties in the country to do the same.

If enacted, the bill would ensure that by 2010, at least 30% of all appointive and elective positions would be reserved for women. This would increase to 40% in 2013 and 50% by 2016. The bill requires all political parties and appointing authorities, the President of the Republic in particular, to ensure that women are sufficiently represented in our governance institutions. This also compels the government and our political parties to institutionalize leadership development programs for women in politics and governance.

Ginoong Speaker, the goal of the bill is not simply to increase the number of women in politics and governance but to create a critical mass of women in decision-making structures to strengthen the push for the women’s agenda. This cannot be done if our political institutions act like enclaves of men. Indeed, as a feminist party, AKBAYAN wishes that this chamber would be in the forefront of the struggle to increase women participation. Again, we congratulate the decision of the House leadership to elect a woman Deputy Speaker, but and we join Filipino women in looking forward to the day when the Speaker presiding over this chamber is a feminist woman.