CEDAW/C/SR.36 English Page 11 (Mrs. Rebong, Philippines) 51. Those restrictions formed part of the country's law, but they were not applied in practice. Wives administered conjugal property jointly with their husbands or alone and engaged in business or professional activity if they wished even if the husband's income was more than sufficient to support the family. They had an equal, if not greater right, to choose the family's place of residence. If women did not engage in those activities, it was out of choice, nor because of the legal restrictions. Nevertheless, since the laws as they stood were discriminatory, the authorities were re-examining them with a view to correcting the inequities, and some amendments had already been submitted to the National Assembly. 52. In response to the questions on legal separation, divorce and abortion, she said that divorce was not recognized except for the Moslem population, but that legal separation was allowed. In such cases the court determined whether the mother or the father was best qualified to have custody over the children; generally, children under five years of age stayed with the mother. All family planning measures were allowed, although only therepeutic abortion was permitted. Children born out of wedlock were entitled to support from the father and to receive inheritances. The special court for family relations had been abolished and its functions transferred to the regular courts. 53. Prostitution was a crime and punishable by law. Since the main cause of prostitution was economic, the Government, through the Ministry of Labour and other ministries and councils, tried to give jobs to unemployed young women and to those who were out of school. Some women, nevertheless, sought to supplement their income by prostitution. The Government did not sanction the sexual exploitation of males and females which was part of the infamous sex tours organized by foreign travel agencies. It had called upon foreign Governments to put an end to those package deals and had issued an order to all travel agencies to stop organizing them under penalty of revocation of their permits. The Ministry of Tourism had set up a special trip for journalists from a country whose travel agencies were heavily involved in sex tours in order to give them a true picture of the country. 54. Political affairs was one area in which Philippine women fully enjoyed equal rights. They had been given the vote as early as 1937, and since independence in 1946, they had been elected to legislative bodies and served as mayors, governors and vice-governors. The voting age for Philippine women was the same as for men. In the 1978 elections for the National Assembly, 49.96 per cent of the voters had been women. There were no laws or practices whatsoever that prohibited Philippine women from seeking election to public office. In fact, one of the candidates for President in 1981 had been a woman. There was no quota for women in public office. 55. Women had the same rights to education as men. The latest figures showed that more women were enrolled at the tertiary level, preparing themselves for a wide variety of careers, than men. The Constitution provided for equal employment opportunities and for equal pay for equal work. cases of violations of those rights were handled by the National Labour Relations Commission, which had exclusive jurisdiction to hear and rule on cases involving unfair labour practices, / ...