In line with the observance of Women’s Month this March, Senior Deputy Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo recently stressed the importance of breaking the remaining “myths that relegate women to being second-class individuals.”

The former President and now Pampanga representative also called on Filipino women to “band together and push for women’s economic empowerment, particularly for those from the rural and urban poor sectors.”

Arroyo recalled Filipino women have been enjoying rights such as the right to equal education opportunities; suffrage and the right to own property long before women’s empowerment was recognized as a global issue.

“Our women’s rights were firmed up by the passage of the Women in Development and Nation Building Act and further reinforced by Republic Act 9710, the Magna Carta for Women,” said the lawmaker.

The implementation of these two landmark laws resulted in the country’s having achieved 6th place in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap annual ranking for the years 2006 to 2008.

The Magna Carta for Women created the PCW mandated to review and coordinate all measures for women empowerment at all levels. This Magna Carta bill had waited ten years for congressional action before it was passed in August, 2009, with some push from the Arroyo administration.

During the Arroyo presidency, seven other laws to protect women’s rights were passed such as the one defining violence against women and children and the anti-trafficking of women and children law.