Empowered women!

filling out these roles.

At 51 years old, Agot Isidro has lived both the life of a single and a married woman. Agot was married for 10 years to her ex-husband Manu Sandejas before they separated in 2011. Does she miss the married life? “I did enjoy the married life. I like waking up with someone, I like that idea. But I don’t know if I want to get tied down again.”

As a single woman, Agot appreciates that women nowadays are more open to the thought that it is okay not to have marriage in mind.

“Depends on what your ambitions are or what you want in your life…It’s nice to see that women are more empowered, emboldened because nga—I don’t think it’s because we have something to prove. It’s just the way we are built. We multi-task, we do a lot of things, and we succeed in doing that. I’m proud that a lot of women, even young women, are thinking that way. On the downside, parang, they don’t wanna have families yet and want to focus on careers. Pero, yun nga, depends really on what you want in life, e. No one can say it’s good or it’s bad. It’s really up to you. It’s your life.”

In some cases when a woman does marry, the next expected step will be to bear a child. But for Rachel Alejandro, this wasn’t an option for her and her Spanish husband, Carlos Santamaria. Seven years into their marriage, the couple are without child and they choose to have it that way.

“It was incredulous. Talagang—’What! Why would you not wanna have kids?’” the 44-year-old actress/singer said recalling how her family reacted to it. If you’ve seen my husband, he’s a very good-looking man. So, parang lahat, ‘Sayang naman! Ang gwapo sana ng naging anak niyo.’”

But Rachel and her husband have a practical reason behind their decision.

“This is going to sound, parang, really unromantic, but in our case kasi, at the time, [my husband and I] were moving to the US, so we thought it was more practical [not to have a baby]. I know, it sounds really bad!

Then, eventually, he wants to live in Spain someday, but I’m not ready to do that any time soon. So, the married state just really makes these little legality things…It’s not about ‘you’ll be together forever’ because we know that once you decide na ayaw niyo na, it’s like the piece of paper is gonna keep you, right? So, it’s really more making things neat.”

At the same time, Rachel knows that she may not be able to be the kind of mom she wants to be for her child, “I don’t know what time I would have to give. I mean, I have so many things going on all at the same time that sometimes I really