Womensphere Global leadership Award

September 27, 2012

New York, New York

               Thank you very much for this award, which I accept in all humility.

               I have been in development work for 35 years, but I stumbled into it via the socio-political route.

               I was always politically active, joining the Jaycees’ Operation Quick Count,  supporting candidates for the Presidency as far back as the 1960s, attending rallies and distributing leaflets with my nephews and nieces in tow as well as my students. When I got married however, I dropped out of the political scene as our family grew with the addition of  five children.

               Even when martial was declared by then President Ferdinand Marcos, it was primarily my husband who got involved as a defense attorney for one of our country’s statesmen, former Senator Jose Diokno, who had been summarily picked up and detained.

               It took the assassination of former Senator Benigno Aquino to wake me up from my complacency as it woke up the Filipino people from their stupor.  The arrogance of the deed – done in broad daylight in an airport that had been cordoned off by at least a thousand soldiers – was the straw that broke the camel’s or in the case of the Philippines, the carabao’s back.

               People queued in line around the clock to view his bloodied remains at the Santo Domingo Church. Millions of people  from all walks of life followed his cortege and lined the streets in what was hailed as the largest funeral march in history. My husband and I joined many organizations that mushroomed in the protest movement. My main group was the Alliance of Women for Action Towards Reform – a group of high –powered women with passion and patriotism. We sent the first ever Open Letter to Mr. Marcos that was signed and published by the opposition press. We were often at the front of the rallies, as the organizers felt that our presence would deter violence from the military.  As our  protest rallies grew in intensity and size, Marcos was forced to call a “Snap Election” to show that he still had the mandate of the people. It was the slain Senator’s widow – Corazon Aquino – who was the only one who could unite the bickering opposition parties.

While Marcos was declared the winner, there was clear evidence of widespread electoral fraud, and the first-ever peaceful people powered revolution then succeeded in overthrowing the  20-year reign of the conjugal dictatorship of the Marcoses.

After the Freedom Constitution was written and approved by the people, I was requested by President Aquino to run for Congress. I do not come from a political family and was not independently wealthy, but in  a moment of madness, I said yes. Who could say no to the Icon of the Philippines? My friends raised funds for my campaign, and thousands of volunteers, many of whom I did now know, joined my campaign. I came in Number Two in a field of 11, but the adventure into politics transformed me.

I saw close up the poverty of our people, living in squalor cheek-by-jowl with the enclaves of the rich in gated subdivisions. I walked on planks just inches away from gray, stinking canals; saw a dead baby on top of a table because the parents did not have money  to buy a box or to have him buried; crawled into a home with a ceiling so low we could not stand up. I saw homes where family members took turns sleeping, children with bloated bellies, open sores, or so skinny they looked like skeletons.

Despite our loss,  we held a Thanksgiving Mass where I thanked my donors and volunteers and supporters. There  I made a pledge to spend the rest of my life helping the poor and the disadvantaged. Like other entrepreneurs, I started in my garage, inviting my friends to teach women in my district sewing, crocheting, and making Christmas décor for export.  We expanded to an empty warehouse in a public school and in a National Mental Hospital, where we taught men and women who were mentally challenged but were trainable.

Thus started my 35-year journey into development. I retired last year as President of Ayala Foundation, one of the largest corporate foundations in the country. We focused on social  innovations using business disciplines to create programs that were strategic, scalable, and sustainable. We worked through partnerships to expand our reach. We tapped the overseas Filipinos, especially the Filipino-Americans, to give back to the country of their birth and heritage.

Our largest and most successful program was GILAS, an initiative to put  computer labs with internet access in all our public high schools across our 7,107 islands. By creating a multisectoral social consortium composed of national and local government, hardware and software companies, funding agencies, and the overseas Filipinos, we raised about $7M and connected about 3,600 public high schools effectively giving around 4 million underprivileged youth computer and internet literacy. We then turned the project over to the Department of Education, which has completed the program to cover ALL public high schools. GILAS is considered the largest, private-sector led program in public education, and is seen as one of the most successful public-private partnerships in development. The private sector piloted the program, showed proof of concept, brought it  to scale, and then turned it over to its natural owner.

But I have not forgotten my early interest in politics. My 50 years of engagement in all sectors of society – government, private sector, and the NGO community – has led me to believe that only by finding a way to bring them all together can we really achieve the kind of future we dream of for our country and out people. 

A group of former high level government officials established InciteGov, of which I was founding chair. We developed a program that shows how Politics, Governance, and Development are all inter-related and that each one needs the other two to flourish. The current administration of President Benigno Aquino III clearly shows the truth of this paradigm. As the only son of two Philippine icons – Senator Ninoy Aquino whose assassination triggered the People Power Revolution, and President   Corazon Aquino, whose death catapulted him into the national consciousness – he has pushed a reformist agenda that is already reaping success after success.

His unrelenting campaign against corruption, coupled with his pro-poor programs, acceptance of the private sector as the engine of growth,  has resulted in trailblazing economic and social development in the country. In only two years, our GDP growth rate is second only to China and our stock market has given investors the highest returns in Asia. The government’s Conditional Cash Transfer program has slowly brought 3 million families out of abject poverty. He has set universal health insurance as a short term goal.

On my retirement, I decided to bring the paradigm of Politics-Governance-Development to life through active participation in partisan politics. I have joined the The President’s party, the  Liberal Party of the Philippines, as the Vice President for the Women’s Wing. The Liberal party  is one of the oldest political parties in the country. It was the only party that did not join the one –party system of the Marcos. Last year,  the Liberal Party has done the unthinkable. It has opened its doors to sectoral formations – women, youth, labor, framers/fishers and the urban poor. This is the triumph of the decades-long struggle of the disadvantaged groups against the crony capitalism of the Marcos years, and the continued dominance of entrenched political dynasties and warlords through  patronage politics.

               I have accepted the humungous challenge of giving leadership to the Women’s Wing of the Liberal Party, especially since women cut across all the rest of the sectors – youth, farmers/fishers, labor, and urban poor.

               What do we hope to achieve?

1.      The development of the women themselves through education, skills training, livelihood, jobs, or enterprise development.

2.      The empowerment of the women through the realization of their self-worth and leadership training

3.      The development of strong, strategic, and sustainable women’s organizations so that they can have a collective voice in the national discourse.

4.      The identification of women leaders who can be trained, mentored, and supported for possible electoral or appointive positions in government.

In the political sphere, these sectors are often viewed as electoral votes to be bought by dole-outs or patronage. It is an unequal relationship of benefactor and beneficiary, where the women feel they are beholden to the politician who gave them $10 to vote for them, or gave them a recommendation to the government hospital for the treatment of a child.

We are starting to organize the women so that, as they come together behind shared ideals, shared values, and shared dreams, they can become a force to be reckoned with. The power of the ballot that they will hold in their collective hands can balance the equation. The politicians will need them as much as they need the politicians.

This will allow them to negotiate on an equal footing; demand basic services as a right and not as a privilege; demand good governance, transparency and accountability; demand to have a voice in the national discourse and a place at the table where decisions are made.

Last Saturday, we launched the very first provincial chapter of the Women’s Wing of the Liberal Party in Negros Occidental,  a province south of Manila. About 2,000 women came from cities and municipalities, from their farms and their homes, some with babies in their arms and children on their laps. They came on time, quietly took their places in the hall, listened to the speakers on liberalism, on the Liberal party platform of governance, on the President’s Social Contract, and on their role in crafting their own future.

They are the first wave in what we hope will be a tsunami of women standing up, moving forward, and claiming their right to be heard, to be educated, to be all they can be, to decide on the future of the Philippines.

It is a long road, and one fraught with stumbling blocks – husbands who might not want their women to be so bold; village elders who will scold them or humiliate them or laugh at them; politicians who might harass them or worse; women who do not understand why other women are entering the dirty world of politics.

I for one know that I may not see the fruits of my labor. But I will plant the seeds and hope that they find fertile soil in the hearts of minds of other women like the 2,000 women of Negros Occidental, who will finally take their destiny and their future  into their own hands to make sure that it will be far brighter for their children and their children’s children.

It is in their name that I accept this award, and in the name of the all women workers in development NGOs in the Philippines who laid the foundation for this brave new adventure of Empowering Women in Partisan Politics.