Analyzing the Filipino Women’s Situation An analysis of women’s human issues in the country is the natural starting point in crafting a national women’s legislative agenda. Statistics is pivotal in the process to establish “facts” and support claims of empowerment or disempowerment, and herein lies the contradiction between numbers and experiences of women in relation to gender equality – and even the numbers on gender equality are debated. The Philippines is regarded as one of the most advanced countries in terms of gender equality in Asia, if not in the world. Until 2019, the Philippines is consistently in the top 10 gender equal countries according to the Gender Gap Index since the World Economic Forum established this index in 2006. The Gender Gap Index measures the extent women are equal to men in four key areas: health, education, employment and income, political participation.1 The country is also under Group 1 in the UNDP Gender Development Index, meaning there is minimal disparity between women and men in relation to national human development indicators (life expectancy, literacy and labor force participation). Thus, the argument that the State is already fulfilling its women’s human rights obligations. On the other hand, women’s organizations have pointed out the limitations of taking statistics as the primary indicator of the status of women in the country. First, it is constrained by the status quo’s definition of gender equality (generally oriented to a “females versus males” perspective, as evidenced by sex-disaggregated data) and within selected parameters. Specifically on the latter, there is much more gender data being tracked from the local levels and consolidated at the national government offices, but these are not made readily available to the public or utilized in reports.2 The theme “women’s access to justice”, for instance, is largely unexplored in national statistics – how should this be operationalized, what quantitative data available can be used to measure this, and what else needs to tracked to monitor fulfillment of gender equality in this regard. Second, quantitative data by itself presents a limited picture of the status of women in Filipino society when it is de-contextualized from qualitative data which can provide clearer answers why a particular statistic indicates women’s empowerment or disempowerment. The statistics on VAW cases in the country is an example i.e., how should one interpret the increase, or decrease, of the number of VAW cases recorded by the PNP? On the one hand, it can be taken to mean that more women are aware of their rights thus, are reporting now violence; on the other, it means that laws against VAW has made minimal impact in changing the mindset of perpetrators (very often males) and communities about women’s place in their families and society. Pertinent to note that in four areas examined by the Gender Gap Index, the Philippines scored lowest in political participation, which looked into the proportion of women represented in formal decision making bodies, relative to men. 2 “Parreno, N.E. and Mesina, M.R.G. (2019) “Making Data Work for Women’s Human Rights: A Proposed Framework for the CHR Observatory on Gender-Based Violence”, a report submitted to the Commission on Human Rights – Gender Equality and Women’s Human Rights Center. 1