Sorsogon State College

Magallanes Campus
Magallanes, Sorsogon
S.Y : 2019 – 2020

10
FILIPINA
WHO
ADVANCED
MODERN
FEMINISM
 IN THE
COUNTRY
Joy H. Estares
Jadelyn A. Jimeno
BSED – II

1. Leticia Ramos-Shahani
She was a former senator, chair of the National Commission on the Role of
Filipina Women and UN assistant secretary general for Social Development and
Humanitarian Affairs. She is the one of the women who spearheaded and solely
drafted Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women (CEDAW) during the height of the international recognition of Women’s
Human Rights in 1967. Shahani passed the Foreign Service Exam and worked for
the Department of Foreign Affairs. She later became the representative of the
country to the first International Conference on the Status of Women in Mexico in
1975. She did this while establishing a local mechanism in the Philippines to
advance the cause of women. After the Mexican conference, Shahani and other
Filipina women leaders- Helena Benitez, Cecilia Munoz Palma, and Irene Cortes-
formed the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women in 1975. In 1987,
she started her term as a Philippine senator under the first Aquino administration
and served for two terms. She pioneered laws intended to alleviate the plight of
women.
2. Patricia Benitez-Licuanan
She served as the chairperson of the Commission on Higher Education,
Chairwoman of the then National Commission on the Role of Filipina Women,
chairperson of the Commission on the Status of Women, chairperson of the Main
Committee Fourth World Conference on Women, co-founder of the Asia-Pacific
NGO Forum in Beijing.
As graduate student of psychology, she focus her work on the problems of
women, initially on the problems caused by migration. She was struck by the
gender dimensions on how different issues affect women than men. After
working for the United Nations, Licuanan returned to the academe and served as
the academic vice president of Ateneo de Manila University and then moved on
to become president of Miriam College. One of her radical decisions during her
term as president of Miriam College was the restoration of the college into an all
women’s institution after experimenting with co-education for 15 years. As CHED
chair, she continued to advocate gender equality in various educational
institutions.

3. Teresita Quintos-Deles
She is a peace advocate; former chair and co-founder of Coalition for
Peace, National Peace Conference; presidential adviser on the Peace Process
during the time of former President Benigno Aquino III; and appointed lead
convenor of the National Anti-Poverty Commission from 2001 to 2003. She
maintained an active involvement in the women’s movement particularly in the
institution of PILIPINA, which is recognized as the first women’s organizations in
the Philippines to espouse an explicitly “Homegrown Feminist” line. She also
represented a civil society in key governance partnerships, including the Social
Reform and Poverty Alleviation Act, Indigenous People’s Rights Act, and Anti-
Rape Law, among others.
4. Sister Mary John Mananzan,OSB
She is a feminist activist, former GABRIELA chairperson, former president
of St. Scholastica’s College, and prioress of the Missionary of Benedictine Sisters
of the Manila Priory. Named as one of the top 100 Inspiring People in the World
during her time as director of the Institute of Women’s Studies if St. Scholastica
in 2011, she was cited for being instrumental in developing a feminist Third World
theology within the Catholic Church and introducing feminist activism. As a
feminist activist, Sr. Mary John led many women-centered programs and
organizations such as the Women Crisis Center and the Women’s Ecology and
Wholeness Farm. She was also active in the street parliament against the
dictatorship during the Marcos regime.

5. Sister Christine Tan

She was the first Filipina to head the Philippine Province of the Religious
of the Good Shepherd, a former chairperson of the Executive Board of the
Association of Major Religious Superiors of Women in the Philippines, and
founder of Alay Kapwa Christian Community. During the Marcos regime, should
boldly issued a memorandum to all major superiors of religious men and women
that they would continue publishing ‘Signs of the Times’ despite telegrams from
Chairman Hans Menzi of the Philippine Council for Print Media asking then to
stop publishing various reports.
She was a member of the 1986 Constitutional Convention by an invitation
from the President Corazon Aquino to give the urban poor a voice in the revision
of the Constitution of the Philippines. She chose to live among the urban poor
despite coming from a very wealthy family.
6. Joi Barrios
Born as Maria Josephine Barrios in 1962, she is a popular poet, actress,
scriptwriter, and activist. She earned her PhD in Filipino and Philippine Literature
from the University of the Philippines and served as associate professor and
associate dean of the UP College of Arts and Letters. Her works included a
collection of poetry entitled To Be A Woman is to Live at A Time of War
published by the institute of Women’s Studies in St. Scholastica’s College in
1990.
She was among the one hundred woman chosen as Weavers of History
for the Philippines Centennial Celebration. An awardee of the Ten Outstanding
Women in the Nation’s Service(TOWNS) in 2004, Barrios teaches Filipino and
Philippine Literature at the Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies
and the Asian American Program of the University of California.

7. Lorena Barros
Maria Lorena Barros was a woman leader, gifted writer, and one of the
icons of modern Philippine feminism. She was one of the well-known heroes
during the anti-dictatorship struggle who founded the Malayang Kilusan ng
Bagong Kababaihan or MAKIBAKA.
In 1970, she graduated from the University of the Philippines with a
degree in Anthropology and taught while taking up graduate courses. In 1971,
Barros was one of the 63 student leaders charged with subversion. She went
underground but was arrested in 1973, jailed at Camp Vincente Lim in Laguna,
and then transferred to Fort Bonifacio’s Ipil Rehabilitation Center where she
escaped a year later. She re-joined the underground movement and continued
writing poems, songs, and essays there.
In 1974, the Marcos government offered PHP35,000 for her capture.
In 1976, Barros was seriously wounded and captured in an armed encounter in
Mauban, Quezon. When she ask for cooperation by her captors in exchange for
medical treatment, she chose not to cooperate. She died at the age of 28.
8. Raissa Jajurie
Atty. Jajurie is the Moro program coordinator of the Alternative Legal
Assistance Center.
An advocate of Muslim women’s rights, she believes in justice for Muslim
women in accordance with Islamic teachings and human rights standards. In her
ten years of work with Muslim women, she founded Nisa UI-Haqq fi Bangsamaro
(Women for Justice in the Bangsamoro), an organization for Muslim women, that
conducts trainings community dialogues, researches, and policy advocacy.
Recently, Atty. Jajurie was appointed to join the MILF Peace Panel in 2014.

9. Roselle Ambubuyog
She is the first visually-impaired Filipina to be awarded Summa Cum
Laude. Blind at the age of six, Ambubuyog did not let her disability hinder her to
finish her studies. She graduated Valedictorian in her elementary school and high
school. She was awarded a full scholarship at the Ateneo de Manila University
where she later graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics with all the
possible awards for student excellence and service. Outside school, she received
special awards and recognition from the Ten Outstanding Students of the
Philippines, Order of the Knights of Rizal, and the Bank of the Philippine Islands
Foundation Science Award. Ambubuyog also started a project in partnership with
the Rotary Club of Makati-Ayala, which donated computers, scanners, and Braille
technologies to different schools, giving opportunities to blind students.
10. Rosa Henson
Lolo Rosa was a comfort woman. In 1992, she broke the science about
Filipina comfort women through her autobiography, Comfort Women: Slave of
Destiny. During World War II, she joined the Hukbalahap and served as a
messenger. She was forcibly taken by the Japanese forces and brought to a
hospital in Angeles, Pampanga, where her ordeal as a comfort woman began at
14 years of age. She was raped by scores of Japanese soldiers. After coming out
her story, she fought for justice for comfort women by joining demonstrations and
even filing a suit in Tokyo. She died in 1997 at the age of 69.