Here’s a weird extension to what Senator Sergio
“Serge” Osmeña III had in mind when he said that Philippines might be the first
country in the world to have two female leaders. Yes, he is pertaining to Grace
Poe as president and Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo as her VP. Currently, there
are only six women out of 24 members in the Senate which is equivalent to 25% of
the members in the Upper House. Having such gender imbalance in the Senate, one
might think of voting all the women candidates for senators, regardless of
their political party, affiliation, advocacies, ideological leaning or
favourite television show. Anyway, except for the TV show, those I have
mentioned are now of lesser importance in each election.
Women make up half or more of the population and
yet they occupy only 1/5th of elective positions in the government.
This imbalance seemingly resulted to the neglect of issues and concerns
relating to women. It is now the right time to give the women full and complete
responsibility of handling the nation’s political balls. With this, the gap is fixed.
Our Constitution should now limit the right to be voted upon to women. The
paternalistic and male-dominated governments flawed since election was
introduced in the land in 1907. It was the year when the first fully national
election for a fully elected legislative body was held both for the Philippine
Assembly and the bicameral Philippine Legislature. That was during the American
Colonial Period.
In the meantime, why not vote ALL the women contesting for the senatorial race this May? My All-Woman-Ticket
is composed of Leila de Lima (#12), Nariman Ambolodto (#2), Risa Hontiveros
(#19), Alma Moreno (#24), Princess Jacel Kiram (#23), Lorna Kapunan (#22), and
Susan 'Toots' Ople (#25). Imagine what will happen if they join the ranks of the
remaining incumbent senators Loren Legarda, Nancy Binay, Cynthia Villar and Pia Cayetano. I
cannot image what will happen when women clash with each other in the
male-dominated Halls of the Senate.
As I have proposed, let us give the women all the
political seats and bestow them, including the women in each barangay, towns
and provinces, a chance to lead by banning the males from filing his candidacy and
be stripped off of their right to be involved in the electoral arena.
Both men and women can be a ruthless punisher like
Digong Duterte with all his cuss words. In Madagascar of old, there’s a queen
named Ranavalona I (1828-1861), a lady punisher. She was a tyrant who hungered
for killing. She introduced of a harsh judicial system which claimed the lives
of her own people were her ways of indulging in her perverse obsessions. One of
her specialties was the traditional practice of trial by the ordeal
of tangena (Take note of
this word Digong and you too, Mar Roxas). In this trial, the accused was
fed three pieces of chicken skin along with poison extracted from the tangena
nut and if all three pieces were thrown up, they were declared innocent.
However, if they did not manage to vomit up all three pieces or died during the
process, they were declared guilty. If that is the case, you cannot even shout
or utter “tang ina!” after the
verdict! Hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives to this tangena thing!
Bongbong Marcos’ father’s dreaded Military Court under
Martial Law was nothing compared to that tangena
trial! Now, who says that brutality and arrogance are exclusive and confined
only to men?
Before April 30, 1937, and that was 79 years ago,
only Filipino men have the right to vote. Article V of the 1935 Constitution
limited the right to vote to men but set a condition that suffrage may also be
extended to Filipino women if 300,000 will vote in favour of the motion in a
special plebiscite to be held within two years after the adoption of the
Constitution. The yes votes exceeded the mark at 447,725 votes, and the rest is
history or herstory,- ah,… whatever!
Since we, the gallivanting males are mesmerized by
all-female bands, why not an all-female led government? …
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