CEDAW/C/PHL/CO/7-8/Add.1
1.
This report is in response to the Committee’s request for the State to provide,
within two years from 2016, information on the steps it has under taken to implement
priority recommendations:
A.
Adoption of a Comprehensive Anti-Gender-Based Violence
(GBV) Law
2.
The issue of GBV is too broad to be contained in one law. Each form of violence
has its specific set of elements and nuances that require certain modes of redress/
penalties already provided for in existing laws and policies.
3.
The State expresses reservation in adopting a single comprehensive Anti-GBV
legislation because separate/individual laws covering various forms of GBV are
already in place (Annex 1). Instead, the State prefers to improve the implementation
of existing GBV statutes, and to amend and/or repeal any discriminatory provisions.
4.
In the meantime, there are other GBV/women rights-related bills pending in the
Philippine Congress (Annex 2).
5.
Nonetheless, the State seeks the advice of the Committee regarding its rationale
for laying down this recommendation. If the Committee can provide guidance on the
purpose and proper codification of existing VAW laws into an omnibus law, the State
may reconsider the value of this recommendation.
B.
Expediting the Amendment of the Anti-Rape Law
6.
Bills amending the Anti-Rape Law are pending in Congress. Work on these bills
are facilitated not only by the congressional committees concerned, but through
advocacy mechanisms, such as the Women’s Priority Legislative Agenda of the
Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) and ad hoc groups, such as the
multi-stakeholder Technical Working Group on Increasing the Age of Statutory Rape
spearheaded by the Council for the Welfare of Children.
C.
Sexual and Reproductive Health Concerns
Institutional and Policy Framework
Ensuring women’s access to services and effective methods of family planning; and
enforcing MCW, and the RPRH Law, upon disposal of constitutional challenges
7.
The State ensures women’s access to contraceptives that are part of the Essential
Medicines List by the World Health Organization.
8.
Access to and effective delivery of family planning (FP) services and methods
are reinforced by relevant State actions, such as:
• Meeting unmet needs for FP by mapping out areas to identify tar get
beneficiaries;
• Ensuring informed and voluntary FP through intensive community-based
demand generation and referral activities, mobile vehicles for FP outreach,
adolescent and youth health and development strategies; and a Focal Point
System for the Philippine Action for the Acceleration of Family Planning
(FP 2020);
• Capacitating and mobilizing operational structures to address FP concerns, such
as training of health providers on FP competency, including allowing midwives
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