Setting the example

In 1997, this city passed Ordinance 5004, a Women Development Code, protecting women from various forms of abuse, discrimination and harassment, including in the workplace and public places. The code promoted reproductive health for women over a decade before Congress passed the RH Law. Among “other forms of sexual harassment,” it listed cursing and whistling at women in public.

The local government unit that enacted the ordinance was not Quezon City, which passed a similar ordinance only recently, but Davao City. And the mayor who signed the landmark ordinance into law was Rodrigo Duterte.

The Davao mayor, now busy preparing to assume the presidency, whistled about a dozen times during a press conference the other night. He whistled to make a point – that he was not directing it at any particular woman, and that whistling in this way was covered by his constitutional right to free expression.

Under those circumstances, of course, no woman at the press conference felt she was the subject of the whistling so no one took offense. This was not the case when the reason the issue cropped up at the press conference occurred: a wolf whistle that everyone thought Duterte had directed at GMA 7

News reporter Mariz Umali during an earlier press briefing.

Reacting to criticism from women’s groups as well as Umali’s husband about the incident, Duterte said he let out the whistle because he was “exasperated” by Umali’s question. And how, he wanted to know, could people tell if his whistle was directed at the reporter?

Duterte brushed aside questions about the fact that he himself had enacted the Women Development Code of Davao City on Sept. 17, 1997, which bans whistling at women in public.

The code is in fact a laudable piece of local legislation promoting the welfare of women down to the barangay level. It has provisions on the rights of rural women, the elderly and those with disabilities, and sets up programs including socialized lending for women’s livelihood. The ordinance raises maternity leave benefits and encourages breastfeeding in the city. It protects women against job discrimination, domestic violence and humiliation, including certain types of beauty contests.

The city ordinance indicates that the mayor also has the welfare of women in mind. As president, Duterte will be expected to set the example in the treatment of women. He must not wait for noon of June 30 to start setting himself up as a role model.