| Abstract |
In assessing women's status in the Philippines, this report, submitted to the Gender Issues Working Group of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council in Oct. 1994, highlights facts such as women in the Philippines comprise 49.8 percent of the population, enjoy a better status than most women in Asia, have a high literacy rate and enjoy a better occupational status than their mothers. However, despite their active involvement in the social, economic and political arenas of Philippine society, these women have remained marginalized. In the labour force, they occupy lower positions than men and are paid less, even within specific occupational groups. Also, due to difficult economic conditions at home, many women seek overseas employment, where they often suffer from discrimination, sexual exploitation, and physical abuse. While women and men have equal access to education, the problem of gender-tracking of professions severely limits the choice of women to lower-paying and less challenging jobs. Also women's participation in formal and informal structures of decision-making has been low. Despite efforts by governments and NGOs to accelerate women's development, women remain disadvantaged due to the prevalence of sex-role stereotyping and other biases against them resulting from the socialization process men and women receive from childhood and the low level of consciousness of women's issues in almost all sectors.
Policy developments such as recognizing the role of women in nation building, ensuring the fundamental equality of women and men before the law, integrating GAD-sensitive policies into the Philippine Development Plan, and stipulating that all provincial, city and municipal councils shall have a sectoral representative for women are positive steps. However, comprehensive packages of programmes for women have not been fully adopted and, up to the present, must rely on foreign assistance and marginal government allotments.
In the water and sanitation sector, meeting women's gender needs has proved difficult since, as part of the infrastructure sector traditionally perceived to be masculine, planning is centered on physical projects rather than concern for people. Although this report outlines the findings of a country paper which indicates a greater receptiveness by Philippine society to more participation by women in the water supply and sanitation sector and to policies calling for increased participation by women in development efforts, external factors such as the low priority and small budget accorded to the women's agenda hamper efforts to enhance gender responsiveness within the sector. Also, since women have very limited involvement in technical and managerial functions due to cultural bias, women's advancement to technical and supervisory positions in the water and sanitation sector has been deterred. Other factors limiting women's full participation in the management of water and sanitation facilities include: policy provisions and programme measures which discriminate against women's involvement, the inability to look at women's participation from the women's perspective, the tendency to look at women merely as one of the resources for the achievement of the project's objectives, and the notion that women's involvement should consist of free and unlimited service to the sector. Recommendations to promote gender responsiveness in the water supply and sanitation sector call for re-evaluating the strong project orientation, addressing women's practical and strategic needs from the women's perspective, correcting policy provisions and programme strategies that hinder women's involvement as beneficiaries of water supply and sanitation projects, creating new and strengthening existing GAD mechanisms, and enhancing women's participation in technical and managerial functions in water supply and sanitation projects.
An annex entitled, "Partnership in Operation and Maintenance", emphasizes that to achieve effective and long-lasting water supply and sanitation programmes and projects, men must contribute a fair share of the time, labour and money which so frequently are expected of women. This gender approach seeks to re-evaluate existing patterns and to promote equality in women's and men's opportunities, work, control and benefits.
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