CEDAW/C/SR.327 English Page 14 Department of Labour and Employment was empowered to investigate complaints about alleged violations of the labour laws in the agricultural sector. 83. With regard to the comparative literacy levels of rural and urban women, rural women had a lower level of literacy, although a steady increase in the literacy rate had been recorded between 1989 and 1994 for both rural and urban women. 84. Women constituted almost half of all agricultural workers. Of that number, 57 per cent were unpaid family workers, 26 per cent own-account workers and 17 per cent wage-earners. The initial results of a special study being done by the Agricultural Training Institute indicated that there were 1,765 women extension workers. 85. Obstacles to the application of article 15 included the conflict between section 5 of Republic Act No. 7192, which provided that married women should have equal rights and thus the capacity to borrow and enter into credit arrangements under the same conditions as men, and article 106 of the Family Code, which stipulated that each spouse's right to conjugal property during marriage was inchoate and ripened into title only upon the dissolution of the marriage. The Family Code also espoused the concept of community property. In cases of disagreement over the administration or enjoyment of such property, the husband's decision prevailed, subject to recourse to the court by the wife. Married women could therefore dispose of or encumber only their own exclusive property, and that was precisely why banks were reluctant to grant loans that relied on the encumbrance of conjugal property without the spouse's consent. 86. As for the results of the initiatives contained in the Women in Development and Nation-building Act, 72 national and subnational focal points had been established, most of which undertook various projects on the mainstreaming of gender concerns in their agency's mechanisms. Other results of the Act had been that the first woman Brigadier-General had been appointed in 1993 to the Philippine National Police; that full-time homeworkers could avail themselves of social security through their working spouses; that government lending institutions were providing loans for rural women, which were repayable in five years with minimal interest and no collateral; and that wives were being issued passports in their own right. 87. Responding to questions raised under article 16, she said that, under the Family Code, either spouse could exercise any legitimate occupation without the consent of the other; administration and enjoyment of community property belonged jointly to both spouses, although the husband's decision would prevail in cases of disagreement; either spouse could dispose by will of his or her interest in the community property; either spouse could make, without the consent of the other, moderate donations from the community property for purposes of charity or on occasions of family celebrations or family distress; where a wife was abandoned by the husband or the latter failed to comply with his obligations to the family, the wife could petition the court for receivership, judicial separation of property or for the authority to be the sole administrator of the community property. The Code also provided for, inter alia, determination of the family domicile, support of the family, management of the household, exercise of parental authority and the rights of women outside marriage with respect to their property. / ...