NP has most women bets in nat’l slate

by ROLLY T. CARANDANG, HANNAH TORREGOZA (Manila Bulletin)

http://mb.com.ph/articles/246667/np-has-most-women-bets-nat-l-slate

As the world celebrates International Women's Day on Monday, Senator Pia Cayetano lauded Nacionalista Party standard-bearer Sen. Manuel “Manny” Villar for including the most number of women candidates in the party’s national slate for this year’s elections.

Cayetano also called on Filipino voters to support pro-women candidates in the May 10 polls to ensure that the interest and issues of women are protected under the next administration.

“Voters should carefully study the track record of candidates, particularly their stand on women’s concerns,” she said.

“Regardless of whether they are male or female, the candidate should have a clear platform that looks after issues affecting women, including maternal health, the declining state of public health services, feminization of labor migration, gender discrimination, poverty, and trafficking.”

Cayetano, principal author of the Magna Carta of Women, added that a deeper and more diverse field of male and female candidates would give voters more options and better chances of pushing for genuine reforms in 2010.

The Nacionalista Party has the most number of women candidates in its national slate, including vice presidential candidate Loren Legarda and five senatorial bets: Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Gabriela Representative Liza Maza, children’s rights advocate lawyer Gwen Pimentel, migrant labor rights’ champion Susan “Toots” Ople, and Cayetano.

Cayetano also cited Villar’s record of pushing for women’s rights and helping abused and distressed Filipina workers overseas.

To enhance women empowerment, the lady senator from Taguig City is also urging more women to seek elective posts from the national down to the local levels.

She said women comprise only four out of 23 senators and only around 25 percent of the membership in the House of Representatives. The ratio is even smaller for elected women on the local levels.

Meanwhile, Legarda said that in this age of global warming, women have a pivotal role in solving ecological problems which puts at stake the very survival of humanity.

Legarda urged women to spearhead educating the family in promoting zero waste management within their own backyards and in teaching their children to respect the environment.

She said women should be ardent supporters of recycling and using renewable sources of energy such as biomass.

Legarda, who heads the Senate Committee on Climate Change and is an environment advocate herself, noted that elsewhere, women do not only perform a significant role in the environment as a housewife and keeper of the earth but also in the political arena where women occupy high seats in government.

However, she deplored how women today still continue to suffer from inequities.

“From the killing fields of Darfur, she suffers genocide, or together with her sisters, is brazenly murdered with wanton impunity and left in an unfinished grave in Mindanao,” Legarda said.

The senator lauded the aptness of the United Nations global theme for International Women’s Day: “Women and Men, United to End Violence Against Women and Girls.”

“Women continue to be mater dolorosa, cradling a suffering child in war-ravaged or drought-infested lands; her arms raised in supplication in the wake of ruinous quake in Haiti or a super typhoon in the Philippines. Or in supreme irony, take care of her children by leading them to care for others in Dubai, Jordan, Jeddah and Hong Kong,” she said.