The Philippines has ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
The Philippine Constitution of 1987 recognizes the fundamental equality of women and men and the New Family Code of 1987 affirms women's right to own property and to contract employment and credit without the need of their husbands' consent. The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988 guarantees equal rights to land ownership, equal shares of the farm's produce, and representation in advisory or appropriate decision-making bodies to qualified women of the agricultural work force. Legislation of 1990 mandates the establishment of day care centres in every village to free women for other activities such as farming or attending extension and other meetings. The Women in Development and Nation Building Act of 1992 provides equal access to resources, including credit and training. It also requires the allocation of a substantial portion of Official Development Assistance (ODA) funds to support programmes and activities for women.
These laws, however, have yet to be fully implemented. In the case of the Women in Development and National Building Act, mechanisms and systems have yet to be developed and established for allocating and monitoring ODA funds for women. In the case of agrarian reform, as of 1992, 87% of the redistributed land went to men and only 13% to women. At the higher levels of the agrarian reform decision-making bodies, women hold only about 5% of the positions and at the village level about 20%.
This can be attributed to the lack of awareness by men and women of women's legal rights in regard to access to resources and membership in decision-making bodies. Gender-awareness sessions do not usually deal with women's legal rights.
