Pia: "All the sustainable development goals can be achieved if we empower women"
December 4, 2023
Pia: "All the sustainable development goals can be achieved if we empower women"
Senator Pia S. Cayetano's remarks at the opening of the 'Walk In Her Shoes' exhibit
Hello everyone, I am so happy that we're here together, not the usual Senate people. We have our guests. And when we have our guests, it allows us to have a broader audience.
So we are joined today by Dr. Leila Joudane of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), also from the Philippine Commission on Women, Atty. tty. Khay Ann Borlado; and we have representatives from the different UN offices. And as we were discussing with Leila just a few minutes ago, she was explaining to me how the work that we do for women is embedded in all the UN agencies. And if you recall, that's always what I talk about when I talk about my Committee, the Committee on Sustainable Development Goals, Innovation, and Futures Thinking. All the sustainable development goals can be achieved when we empower women. If you take out the empowerment of women, then it makes it extremely difficult to even consider how we are going to go about achieving those other goals. Like how do you achieve better education for all if women are not included? How do you achieve better health when women are dying while they are having birth, when they can't even plan how many children they are going to have? How do we plan sustainable cities when women don't even have the support they need to raise their family in their own homes? They can't even work, hindi man lang makapag trabaho dahil no one's going to be left behind to take care of their kids.
So it's really integrated and I am happy that we're totally aligned on this. So later on, after we... and this is inspired by Sen. Loren, one of my idols. We are no longer doing ribbon cutting. We are doing ribbon untying. So when we do that, then we are going to walk you through the lives of different women. It's so interesting how we will get a glimpse, because many of us have not had the experience of being an OFW, there's also a farmer, there's one lady who now has a technical job but she had to do it in a foreign country, facing a lot of discrimination. So iba't ibang klase ng kababaihan ang makikita niyo in our exhibit, the lives that they go through. And what I love about it is pinapakita dito yung buhay ng mga babae, all facets of it.
When you see me standing here, as an outspoken, empowered female senator... But there's also a story behind who I am. And why am I like this? Well, I happened to be blessed by parents who did not care whether I was a boy or a girl, giving me the same opportunities.
It's my favorite story, baka yung mga reporters, sawa na sa kwentong ito, but when I was playing sports as a kid, some of my classmates would tell me that their parents didn't allow them to play sports. And I'm like, why? I didn't understand. But apparently, sports was seen as unladylike. So I still talk about it because it surprises many now. My daughters were born and went on to play football, and it surprises them when I tell these stories. But then I'll still meet people who'll say, oh yes, my lola said that, my grandmother or somebody in their family said that's unladylike.
And the other story I wanted to share is, today happens to be the birthday of my son who passed away. So I also experienced what it was like to be a fulltime lawyer, I was working pregnant, and then diagnosed with a child who would not live, and then living in the hospital with my son, although thankfully, the financial aspect was not as much as a burden because I had parents also who helped me. But these are facets of a woman's life, we are also primarily caregivers. So you have somebody who's sick in the family, it could be a child, it could be a mother, a grandparent, and that burden usually falls on the women as well. Again, these are generalizations, we know of men who are very supportive, take care of their mothers, their sick family members, but generally, ang burden ng taking care of the family is a woman's burden. And that's why I always talk about the double burden that women carry. We, everyone here today, are here because of work, right? I don't think there's anyone here who volunteered to be here because this is your hobby. So all the women you see here are here for work. And all the women you see here would also have another responsibility back home, which is either taking care of the family, even if they're single, most likely, they are taking care, like I said, of other extended members of their family.
So, on that note, I am not even talking about women who have been victims of violence. I did not forget to omit that part, that is my punchline, that is the reason that we are here today because on top of all these responsibilities that women carry, the sad reality is, so many are victims. The figures are as bad as 1 in 3, right? So they say, you look around you, and 1 in 3 of the women you see have been victimized in some way, at home, in particular, which is really terrible, by a loved one, by somebody they trusted, and then, again we'll see some stories, but pati online, that's no longer part of VAWC per se, yung victimized by a loved one, these are real incidents of violence against women and young girls, and for that matter, young boys. So today, we bring attention to these matters in the hope that not just on this day, but the 364 other days of the year, we are conscious of the lives of these women and people who are vulnerable, the challenges that they face, and we can all do our little part in contributing to making their lives better.
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