Women’s Role in History Month
PRESIDENTIAL Proclamation No. 227 issued on March 17, 1988, declared March as Women’s Role in History Month ( WRHM). Presidential Proclamation No. 224 had earlier declared the first week of March of every year as Women’s Week and March 8 as International Women’s Rights and International Peace Day.
The theme for WRHM 2016 is “Kapakanan ni Juana, Isama sa Agenda.” It is a call for gender- balanced leadership and decision making both in the public and private sectors, the inclusion of women’s concerns in the government’s development agenda, and capacitating women and girls to achieve their dreams and ambitions.
Leading the observance of WRHM is the Philippine Commission on Women (PCW), which was formerly the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women ( NCRFW). The NCRFW was renamed PCW on August 14, 2009, and its mandate was expanded with the enactment of Republic Act 9710, the Magna Carta of Women.
Countless Filipino women have left a legacy in the country’s rich and colorful history of struggles and triumphs both during the war and post-war era. Among the women who fought in or helped during the armed struggled for the freedom and democracy we now enjoy are: Nazaria Lagos the “Florence Nightingale of Panay,” who served as the first president of Iloilo’s Red Cross in 1897; Nieves Fernandez, a schoolteacher who was one of several female guerrilla leaders in World War II; Marina Dizon, one of the first woman members of the Katipunan; and Lorena Barros, a student activist who later became a co-founder of the Malayang Kilusan ng Bagong Kababaihan. In the postwar era, when society finally began to allow women to have seats in government, the pioneering Filipino women in public service include: Cecilia Muñoz-Palma, the first woman Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines; Carmen Planas, the first woman City Councilor of Manila; Geronima Pecson, first woman senator; and Corazon C. Aquino, the first woman president of the country.
Today, we offer a toast to all Filipino women, who “remain in the forefront of every progressive movement” – in the family, in the community, and in society in general. The hands that rock the cradle also ably steer the wheels of the country’s various sectors for progress.