Philippines: Good governance for women. What's that?
Saturday, 12 December 2009
Elena Masilungan
To get an accurate picture of the situation of women, we need an accounting of how far power holders and duty bearers in government have fulfilled their commitments to gender equality. In other words, women need accountability. And accountability is, in fact, the central concern of the report, 'Progress of the World's Women 2008/2009: Who Answers to Women?', issued recently by the United Nations Fund for Women (UNIFEM).
In the report's foreword, Ines Alberdi, executive director, UNIFEM, explains: "Accountability from a women's perspective exists when all women are able to get explanations from those in power for actions that affect them and can set in motion corrective actions when those responsible fail to promote their rights."
Aurora Javate-De Dios, a former member of the UN CEDAW Committee during the late 1990s, puts it this way, "Accountability must be a permanent feature of good governance. One way to measure how the government is being accountable to women is to monitor and assess how it is implementing its commitment to CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women)."
The government has a crucial role in ensuring accountability since it is usually the one that signs international treaties and endorses agreements that contain these commitments - such as the CEDAW and the Beijing Platform for Action. In the Philippines, the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women (NCRFW), a government body, is expected to monitor and report on how the government answers its women constituents.
Emmeline Verzosa, Executive Director, NCRFW, has her own definition of accountability. She says that government is accountable which is "transparent in the way it defines its agenda, allocates adequate resources, and carries out programmes and projects that respond to women's needs and concerns. It also means acknowledging gaps and failures in implementing them effectively if such is the case."
With the Philippines having ratified the CEDAW, women can hold the administration responsible for its implementation. "It is the duty and obligation of government to make sure that the CEDAW is known to government agencies, that they are duty holders who have to respect, protect, fulfill and promote women's rights... And because NCRFW's main client are government agencies, we now make use of the CEDAW to tell them that they have to implement it," Verzosa explained.
The government is also required to present periodic country reports to the UN CEDAW Committee on the progress of how this international treaty on women's rights is being implemented in the Philippines. This very process of preparing the report has become another way for the government to make an accounting of its efforts to strengthen women's rights.
While the NCRFW leads in preparing the country report in the Philippines, it tries to involve various women's groups in the process by asking them to contribute with their inputs and present their own assessments. They can even prepare an alternative shadow report to the official government report and present it to the UN CEDAW Committee. After both the official country report and the shadow report have been presented, the Committee makes its observations and recommendations through its Concluding Comments.
Clara Rita Padilla, who is a human rights lawyer and executive director of EnGendeRights, an NGO, believes the CEDAW Committee's comments were very useful. "The CEDAW issued holistic and reality-based Concluding Comments that urge the Philippine government and the populace to face the hard realities that Filipino women experience in our country and to act on them accordingly."
The Concluding Comments can be used as another tool for accountability. They are supposed to make, as Padilla explains, "government officials, politicians, parliamentarians and women's and human rights organisations aware of the steps that have been taken to ensure de jure and de facto equality of women as well as further steps that are required in this regard."
Even so, there are women advocates who feel that the Concluding Comments of the CEDAW report are not disseminated widely enough so that their recommendations become part of policies and projects for women. The NCRFW recognises that a great deal still needs to be done when it comes to monitoring accountability. It is starting to shift from merely documenting compliance with the country's CEDAW obligations to gathering information on the quality and impact of their implementation.
But Padilla believes NCRFW can do more to "paint the reality" in its monitoring and eventual reporting on how government answers to women. "The country report to the CEDAW drafted by the NCRFW is okay on non-controversial issues. But it is very inadequate when it comes to citing government's failure or inadequacy in addressing other urgent women's issues that are not a priority of this administration. It toes the line of the administration instead of pushing it to fulfill its CEDAW obligations."
To illustrate her point, Padilla cites the example, of reproductive rights in the Philippines. "Because President Macapagal-Arroyo does not recognise women's reproductive rights, the NCRFW opted not to strongly advocate for it anymore within the Cabinet. This can easily translate to actions that have disadvantageous impacts on women's health, including the health of mothers," Padilla notes.
According to Javate-De Dios, women, especially organised women, must strongly call government's attention when its policies do not protect their rights. "This is part of accountability - that we tell power holders that their actions are against women's interests and therefore they need to correct them," De Dios says.
This is the proper approach agrees Padilla. "Governmental authority emanates from the people. When government works against the people's interest, it must be taken to task for doing so. This principle applies equally to women. Government must answer to them." —News Network/WFS
To get an accurate picture of the situation of women, we need an accounting of how far power holders and duty bearers in government have fulfilled their commitments to gender equality. In other words, women need accountability. And accountability is, in fact, the central concern of the report, 'Progress of the World's Women 2008/2009: Who Answers to Women?', issued recently by the United Nations Fund for Women (UNIFEM).
In the report's foreword, Ines Alberdi, executive director, UNIFEM, explains: "Accountability from a women's perspective exists when all women are able to get explanations from those in power for actions that affect them and can set in motion corrective actions when those responsible fail to promote their rights."
Aurora Javate-De Dios, a former member of the UN CEDAW Committee during the late 1990s, puts it this way, "Accountability must be a permanent feature of good governance. One way to measure how the government is being accountable to women is to monitor and assess how it is implementing its commitment to CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women)."
The government has a crucial role in ensuring accountability since it is usually the one that signs international treaties and endorses agreements that contain these commitments - such as the CEDAW and the Beijing Platform for Action. In the Philippines, the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women (NCRFW), a government body, is expected to monitor and report on how the government answers its women constituents.
Emmeline Verzosa, Executive Director, NCRFW, has her own definition of accountability. She says that government is accountable which is "transparent in the way it defines its agenda, allocates adequate resources, and carries out programmes and projects that respond to women's needs and concerns. It also means acknowledging gaps and failures in implementing them effectively if such is the case."
With the Philippines having ratified the CEDAW, women can hold the administration responsible for its implementation. "It is the duty and obligation of government to make sure that the CEDAW is known to government agencies, that they are duty holders who have to respect, protect, fulfill and promote women's rights... And because NCRFW's main client are government agencies, we now make use of the CEDAW to tell them that they have to implement it," Verzosa explained.
The government is also required to present periodic country reports to the UN CEDAW Committee on the progress of how this international treaty on women's rights is being implemented in the Philippines. This very process of preparing the report has become another way for the government to make an accounting of its efforts to strengthen women's rights.
While the NCRFW leads in preparing the country report in the Philippines, it tries to involve various women's groups in the process by asking them to contribute with their inputs and present their own assessments. They can even prepare an alternative shadow report to the official government report and present it to the UN CEDAW Committee. After both the official country report and the shadow report have been presented, the Committee makes its observations and recommendations through its Concluding Comments.
Clara Rita Padilla, who is a human rights lawyer and executive director of EnGendeRights, an NGO, believes the CEDAW Committee's comments were very useful. "The CEDAW issued holistic and reality-based Concluding Comments that urge the Philippine government and the populace to face the hard realities that Filipino women experience in our country and to act on them accordingly."
The Concluding Comments can be used as another tool for accountability. They are supposed to make, as Padilla explains, "government officials, politicians, parliamentarians and women's and human rights organisations aware of the steps that have been taken to ensure de jure and de facto equality of women as well as further steps that are required in this regard."
Even so, there are women advocates who feel that the Concluding Comments of the CEDAW report are not disseminated widely enough so that their recommendations become part of policies and projects for women. The NCRFW recognises that a great deal still needs to be done when it comes to monitoring accountability. It is starting to shift from merely documenting compliance with the country's CEDAW obligations to gathering information on the quality and impact of their implementation.
But Padilla believes NCRFW can do more to "paint the reality" in its monitoring and eventual reporting on how government answers to women. "The country report to the CEDAW drafted by the NCRFW is okay on non-controversial issues. But it is very inadequate when it comes to citing government's failure or inadequacy in addressing other urgent women's issues that are not a priority of this administration. It toes the line of the administration instead of pushing it to fulfill its CEDAW obligations."
To illustrate her point, Padilla cites the example, of reproductive rights in the Philippines. "Because President Macapagal-Arroyo does not recognise women's reproductive rights, the NCRFW opted not to strongly advocate for it anymore within the Cabinet. This can easily translate to actions that have disadvantageous impacts on women's health, including the health of mothers," Padilla notes.
According to Javate-De Dios, women, especially organised women, must strongly call government's attention when its policies do not protect their rights. "This is part of accountability - that we tell power holders that their actions are against women's interests and therefore they need to correct them," De Dios says.
This is the proper approach agrees Padilla. "Governmental authority emanates from the people. When government works against the people's interest, it must be taken to task for doing so. This principle applies equally to women. Government must answer to them." —News Network/WFS