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Baguio OKs Gender Code

BAGUIO CITY (Oct. 3) —The city council passed today on third and final reading the Gender Equality and Development Code (Gender Code) of Baguio City. This landmark ordinance champions women’s causes and concerns, among others.

“This is the 6th local government unit to adopt a Gender Code,” City Councilor Perlita Chan-Rondez announced saying the cities of Davao, Naga, Cebu, Angeles and Quezon City have earlier passed their respective Gender Code. Rondez said that finally, there is a local Code which the city constituents could turn to.

Rondez said, “The next step is the formulation of the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) and the creation of an office to implement it, after the city mayor signs it.”

For its implementation, the city government will create the city gender and development unit under the City Mayor’s Office (CMO). Another body, the GEAD (Gender Euality and Development) Council of Baguio will also be formed with 15 prospective members from government agencies and non-government organizations (NGOs) to serve as policy recommending body. An executive committee will likewise be formed by representatives of the city prosecutor’s, legal, social welfare and development and planning offices, with the city council committee on women and family welfare.

An allowable 5% of the local government budget will finance projects under GAD. The city appropriated and P300,000 for the initial impmentation of the Gender Code.

The Gender Code went through the proverbial eye of the needle at the male-dominated city council that took three years to pass a gender-sensitive local law. Then Vice-mayor Betty Lourdes Tabanda authored the first drafts. The Committee on Social Services, Women and Urban Poor, chaired by Councilor Galo Weygan, conducted several discussions with various women’s groups to draft the Code. Due to its importance, the council decided to revive and pass a substituted, amended and simplified version of the measure, Rpondez told Nordis.

“Some councilors introduced several revisions, including some trivial items on the proposed GAD,” Rondez said. “But in fairness, even the statement of policy which used to be a bottle-neck successfully reached the finish line,” Rondez said, recognizing that it is not the personality that counted in the city council’s unanimous decision to pass the Gender Code.

“Actually it was the approach, not me, that mattered,” Rondez told reporters and well-wishers after the council regular session. Like Tabanda who was then presiding officer, Rondez is the lone woman in the city council.

The Gender Code was crafted by people with a heightened awareness of gender, according to Rondez.

Aside from the issues on gender equality, the code also addresses the uniqueness of Baguio City as home to various tribes and ethnolinguistic groups from northeern Luzon and as far south as Mindanao regions.

“The city government, located at the heart of the Cordillera Region, recognizes the various needs of its diverse and multiethnic population. Accordingly, the programs and projects of the city government shall be gender sensitive and gender fair,” the Gender Code’s Statement of Policy says.

It has specific provisions on Reproductive health care, women in governance, violence against women and children, justice, peace and order, labor and employment; environment and natural resources, education, media, arts and culture; trade, industry and tourism and other special sectors’ concerns. to include the disabled and the elderly. # Lyn V. Ramo for NORDIS with reports from Aileen P. Refuerzo/PIO

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