Today’s world is not safe for all women – VP Leni
The world is no longer safe for women, Vice President Leni Robredo lamented and have become more vulnerable in social media. The digital era, she said have made safety and protection difficult to achieve.
“After my husband’s passing five years ago, I have to be both mother and father to my three daughters. With this comes the desire to protect them from all things, even fake news and post-truths. That is a struggle that we face seven days a week without break, even during storms and holidays. Sadly, today’s world is not safe for all women. Attacks and harassment on social media, including threats of rape and bodily harm, are just as painful as attacks in real life. But on social media, we are a lot more vulnerable. Safety and protection are a lot more difficult to find in the digital arena,” she
said in her speech during the Belle du Jour Women’s Summit.
Ask any mother, Robredo said and they will say the work never gets easier as years go by.
On the other hand, at the end of the day, spending time with your children and seeing them happy makes everything worthwhile, sharing her own experience as a mother.
“When times get rough, it is their presence that makes every fight worth it. During last year’s campaign, my daughters said that they were more than willing to share me with the country. They believed in me, perhaps just as my husband had and would have, and saw what I was capable of. With their blessing, I could not refuse the call to serve,” she shared.
Do the right thing Speaking about the personal attacks she had been receiving lately, Robredo said, “In the face of the latest attacks on myself and my office, I have found solace in the fact that empathy empowers, while meanness and criticism imprisons. Negativity turns anyone into a smaller person. So, even as the lies go on unabated, we focus on why we are here: the work of helping the poor and the marginalized.”
The Vice President said her visit to Tangkal in Lanao del Norte, Dayawan in Marawi City, and Saguiaran and Piagapo in Lanao del Sur last week gave her more reasons to forge on.
“We cried with the farmers of Tangkal, who said they have not seen anyone from the national government for decades. The women farmers of Saguiaran and Barangay Udalo, traditionally left to tend the land because their men are out defending it, received seedlings and other farm inputs from Phinma Corporation,” she shared.
The work, she adds is more important than the position itself.
In public service, Robredo said “there will always be criticisms and pain. There will always be people who will try to bring you down. What I have learned from years of watching my husband as mayor, and from personally serving my district as congresswoman, and now serving the country as Vice President, is this: you must do the right thing all the time, even if it means people will seek to take your position from you,” she stated.
Empowering the Filipina Robredo urged the women “to speak the truth all the time, even if you feel like you are the only one who believes in it. You must never be afraid of losing a fight, if you know you have nothing to hide. What is the use of being on the safe side, when you can’t speak out for the voiceless?” she pointed out.
At present, she said the country needs a Filipina with a lot of heart and an independent mind.
“When our freedoms are threatened and our voices overpowered, the Filipina woman we need is someone with a lot of heart and a strong, independent mind. Hers is a story marked with struggles and victories, a voice that is not afraid to be heard, even if it means pain and criticism. Hers is a quiet yet extraordinary strength, a commitment to do the right thing at whatever cost. Hers is the face of hope and grace under fire, a source of light to guide every Filipina,” she noted.
Heat exhaustion
Robredo was supposed to grace the turnover of water pumps to 208 families in the Badjao-Tagalog community in Nueva Ecija yesterday along with representatives from Solanaland, a partner in her anti-poverty program. But the Vice President had to cancel her trip due to heat exhaustion.
The hot dry season has not officially started, but most parts of the country experienced warm weather yesterday due to easterlies — the hot and humid winds blowing from the Pacific Ocean.
With the northeast monsoon blowing over Northern Luzon, the temperature dipped to 32 degrees Celsius in Cabanatuan City while Metro Manila recorded a higher temperature of 33 degrees Celsius as of 3 p.m. Monday.
The heat also prevented Robredo from visiting the housing community in Bagong Bakod in Cabanatuan.
Earlier, she was in Baler, Aurora where she attended the closing celebration of the Women’s Month. (with a report from Raymund F. Antonio)