President Arroyo signs landmark law on women rights!

Pres. Arroyo signed a landmark legislation that promotes women’s rights yesterday, August 14, 2009. Republic Act 9710 or the Magna Carta for Women aims to promote women’s rights in every aspect of the society, at home, work, school, in media and film, and even in the military and police forces. The law also states that the State should amend any law discriminatory to women within the next three years. More importantly, RA 9710 guarantees the civil, political, social and economic rights of women in the marginalized sectors.

The law also aims to increase the number of women that holds high-level positions. In fact its goal is to have women fill half of the third-level positions in the government in the next five years to achieve a "50-50 gender balance". This legislation will help women achieve equal employment opportunities as those of men. In the workplace, women tend to get discriminated even at the recruitment stage. Firms/employers, as they tend to maximize profits and thus minimize costs, have varying ways to try not to recruit women employees so they can cut possible costs they incur when the female employee goes on maternal leave.

Women’s groups along with the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women are to be commended for painstakingly guarding and lobbying for the passage of this law which took seven long years before its enactment.

Philippines has largest percentage of women in senior management

An international survey says that the Philippines has the highest percentage of senior management positions being held by women. Yes, 47 percent of high management positions in privately-held businesses, the highest in the world, are filled by women in the Philippines, almost twice the global average of 24 percent. According to Grant Thornton International Business Report 2009, Russia comes in second at 42 percent while Thailand landed third at 38 percent. The country with the lowest percentage is Japan with only 7 percent of the women holding senior management positions. The Grant THornton International Business Report is an annual survey covering 7,200 privately-held businesses in 36 economies.

Filipino women beats men in terms of general well-being

Did you know that in terms of income, education and health the Filipino women beat the men? In a report by the Philippines’ National Statistical Coordination Board, the estimates of the Gender Equality Ratio (GER) favors the women in all aspects of well-being (i.e. income, education and health). The GER is an index that gives us values around 1. A value greater than 1 signifies that women have an advantage over men. This is true in 72 out of the 79 provinces in the country. Among the provinces where women were outperformed by men (that is where GER is less than 1) are Maguindanao, Siquijor, Basilan, Sulu and Benguet.