THE WOMEN WHO HELPED SHAPE PHILIPPINE FEMINISM

“Women should have choices. It is their choice if they want to go abroad. However, going abroad should not lead to their victimization and oppression. They are there because they want to earn a decent living and that should happen.”

— Patricia Licuanan

She was also one of the early voices of Overseas Filipino Workers and the problems of their families. Strong voices, according to Licuanan, would dismiss the issue and insist that these circumstances justify the fact that women must stay at home. “Women should have choices. It is their choice if they want to go abroad. However, going abroad should not lead to their victimization and oppression. They are there because they want to earn a decent living and that should happen.”

Women’s issues were often dismissed in the academe as well. While heading the Commission on Higher Education from 2010 until 2018, with the help of activists and women advocates, she developed academic programs and formed a technical panel on gender and development. They came up with a CHED Memorandum Order in Higher Education that mainstreamed gender and development in colleges and universities. That memorandum order modified school procedures and helped set up the process to handle issues on sexual harassment. It even led to the establishment of women centers in some universities.

Now, she considers her participation in the 4th World Conference on Women as one of her lasting contributions to the advancement of women. “I [oversaw] the substantive preparation for the Conference. I chaired the Committee that drafted and negotiated the Beijing Platform for Action. It was bloody but we were very luck. We came out with a very enlightened platform.”

The Beijing Platform for Action, that was borne out of the Beijing World Conference on Women, is an agenda for women’s empowerment. According to Licuanan, one of its crucial mission is to “remove all the obstacles to women’s active participation in all sphere of public and private life through a full and equal share in economic, social, cultural and political decision-making.”