H.E. Benigno Simeon C. Aquino Jr.
President
Republic of the Philippines
Dear President Aquino,
We are representatives of organizations and institutions promoting the rights and welfare of
marginalized Filipino women and children. We seek and advocate for the recognition, promotion
and protection of the human rights of women and children as an integral measure to address
the plight and uplift the status of women and children.
We reiterate our appreciation for the establishment of the ASEAN Commission on the
Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC) in April this year.
While we find the mandate of the ACWC as identified in its approved Terms of Reference still
wanting, we express our continued interest and commitment to encourage the ACWC to realize
its role as a specialized regional body for the protection and promotion of the rights of women
and children in Southeast Asia.
Given the gravity and multitude of violations of the economic, political and socio-cultural rights of
women in the region, we believe that the ACWC could help in the monitoring and truthful
implementation of national and international standards embodied in various international human
rights mechanisms, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
Against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which all ten
member states of the ASEAN, including the Philippines, have ratified.
We further believe that the establishment of the ACWC, through the mandate and functions of
country representatives, would complement the work done by national governments, as well as
social movements and civil society organizations, in introducing specific reforms concerning the
protection and promotion of the rights of women and children and in making governments more
responsive to specific situations and needs of women and children.
We thus stress that a fundamental element in realizing the functions of the ACWC is the
selection and appointment of country representatives to this body, and we express serious
concern that of the ten member states of the ASEAN, only the Philippines has not yet
appointed its two representatives to the ACWC.
We particularly call your attention to the fact that since June, when the call for nomination for the
Philippine Women’s Rights Representative to the ACWC initiated by the Philippine Commission
on Women closed, the selection process for Philippine women and children representatives has
been held in abeyance without any further development.
We further express concern that any form of abeyance in the selection process for Philippine
representatives consequently impedes not only on the formal participation of the Philippines to
ongoing ACWC processes, but also on the representation of the interests of Filipino women to
the ACWC and the ASEAN.
In this regard, we urge you to act in your capacity as Chief Executive and ensure that
relevant government bodies proceed and resume the conduct of the selection process.
We finally urge you to expedite the appointment of Philippine representatives to the
ACWC based on qualifications of independence, commitment to human rights and
competence in the field of women’s human rights and children’s rights.
Signed:
Amihan National Federation of Peasant Women
Represented by Ms. Tess Vistro
GABRIELA National Alliance of Women in the Philippines
Represented by Ms. Joan May E. Salvador, Deputy Secretary General
Migrante International
Represented by Ms. Sarah Katrina Maramag
Association for the Rights of Children in South East Asia (ARCSEA)
Represented by Ms. Madella Santiago, Executive Director
CC:
Alberto G. Romulo
Secretary
Department of Foreign Affairs
Orlando S. Mercado
Permanent Representative
Philippine Mission to the ASEAN
Emmeline Verzosa
Executive Director
Philippine Commission on Women
Dinky Soliman
Secretary
Department of Social Welfare and Development
Victoria Batalan
Assistant Secretary
Department of Foreign Affairs
Office of ASEAN Affairs
Department of Foreign Affairs
Endorsers of the petition to expedite selection of Philippine
representatives to the ACWC:
NAME
ORGANIZATION
COUNTRY
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