planning. Another development was Duterte’s expressed support for an AntiDiscrimination Law for people of diverse SOGIE (sexual orientation and gender identity and expression), although he did not certify it as one of the urgent bills for the 18th Congress (Corrales, September 2019). However, similar to earlier victories, it was observed that these milestones were achieved not so much because of strong support of legislators and the executive branch of the government, but through the relentless lobbying of women’s groups and allies, within and outside the halls of Congress. There is no doubt that the women’s political agenda of gender equality and justice is left behind in the largely male-dominated Philippine Congress. Of the present Congress, its stated priority bills include increasing the salaries of government employees, creation of a Department of Overseas Filipinos, the postponement of the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections from 2020 to 2023, and the provision of free legal assistance to members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (Cepeda, September 2019). Add to these are presidential pronouncements regarding issues his administration will actively pursue: the continuation of the War on Drugs, corruption in the government, and the reinstatement of the Death Penalty. Women have much at stake in ensuring that not only their gender-specific issues are addressed in Congress, but also that the laws enacted in the country are cognizant of how gender intersects with other identities, and permeates issues otherwise not specifying women. Drawing on its experience with legislative lobbying, gender-specific bills have been either trivialized and excluded in Congress in favor of “more important issues that affect everyone”, or have been marginalized to refer only “women’s issues”. Similarly, advocates are also hard-pressed to push a gendered perspective for serious consideration in the deliberation of issues where women are invisible or underrepresented in the popular narrative. This is especially true with regard issues where the imagery or representation is mostly male: agriculture and fisheries, peace, criminality, and national territorial disputes, to name a few. Another layer to the struggle is the low number of gender champions in Congress. This is beyond body counting according to one’s sex and gender identity, as one cannot always assume that women or transwomen will support progressive gender equality bills, or assert a gendered perspective on the social issues addressed by various proposed legislation. It continues to be an uphill struggle for women to push their agenda in this formal decision-making channel. A more promising arena seems to be the local level, where progressive ordinances and direct programs targeting gender equality can also be realized in the meantime that a national policy is absent. Historically, too, some gender-responsive actions have been initiated in LGUs due to the presence of strong advocacy, and gender champions at the community level. Examples of these are local Gender and Development Codes even before there was the Magna Carta of Women in 2009; the establishment of police and barangay women’s desks for VAW cases, prior to R.A. 8551 in 1998 and R.A. 9262 in 2004, respectively;8 the expansion of the Anti-Sexual Harassment Law implementation to general See for instance Action Against VAW (Arugaan ng Kalakasan, 1996) which documented the Arugaan ng Kalakasan experience in establishing police women’s desks in Quezon City. The Women’s Legal Bureau 8