Are Women Good Enough to Lead? by Sophia Jianne R. Manio

“Oh, there goes Presidential-aspirant Leni Robredo again, making empty promises without even knowing how to speak properly. Is this who you want running the Philippines? A woman who claims she speaks from the heart but is actually deceiving the masses? She already knows she would lose, I mean come on, look at her competitors, she wouldn’t stand a chance against Bongbong Marcos. You shouldn’t vote for someone who you KNOW will lose, because then the vote will be wasted for naught.” 

This is what I always hear from my father when my mother brings up her political views on the dinner table. My mother has always been a Leni Robredo supporter ever since she announced that she was running for president, meanwhile my father has been on Ping Lacson’s side. Even though I cannot vote in this coming election in May 2022, I can always hear my parents bickering down the hallway about why the other should vote for who and why. At first I never really understood why my father was so against Leni Robredo winning our presidential elections, nor why he always found an ulterior motive to everything she has done thus far but after talking to him about this and my own personal research, I finally figured out why. 

Prejudice. According to Miriam Webster, prejudice is the unfair feeling of dislike for a person or group because of race, sex, religion, and such. People here in the Philippines are fond of judging others whether we love it or hate it. Sometimes it's intentional, most of the time it’s unintentional, however, we women have it rough because here, our every move is magnified. “Oh wow her shirt is so short, has she no shame?” “She cut her hair? She must be heartbroken.” “She got broken up with? She probably did something wrong.” And that’s just a SNIPPET of what we have to go through daily. This unwarranted judgement could come from family, friends, relatives and even strangers, and we can’t do anything about it because if we do, we’re seen as “sensitive” when it was “only a joke.” 

That’s mainly where my father and most of Leni’s antis are coming from , why they’re so against Leni Robredo, a WOMAN, running for president. Prejudice. Society has influenced and changed how we see both male and female and what their equivalent roles are in society and people just accept that a woman is not befitting to be in a higher position simply because of her sex. As of writing this, Presidential-aspirant Bongbong Marcos, the son of the late Philippine

Dictator, has been taking the lead of the “Philippine Presidential Pick” Poll with a whopping 53% out of 2,400 respondents, while Leni Robredo in second with 20%1 Why is that so you may ask? Well, according to Rappler, only 57% of Filipinos are satisfied with Leni Robredo as Vice President, and even worse, only 7-8% of Filipinos are willing to make her the President. In addition, her honest and authentic way of going about the elections sounds good in theory, however it is not really translating well into the public audience.2 

Which makes you think, “Did we really grow up to let men handle everything?” “Did we enforce this mindset of ‘women belong in domestic jobs’ when in fact a woman can be much more deserving of a higher position than a man?” A lot of Filipinas look for work abroad which is made obvious now in this pandemic because of the lack of nurses and healthcare workers in the Philippines. Most if not all nursing students aim to go abroad because there are just better opportunities there and higher pay compared here. A study found that since the 1960’s, about 150,000 Filipino nurses have migrated to the United States3 and it continues to grow as the pandemic ensues. If the next president does not see to it that our economy is to be fixed, then we will continue to lose more essential workers as time progresses. 

With that said, it is important to be level-headed when it comes to debates and discussions about the upcoming elections. We might not all agree on one candidate but that does not warrant any baseless accusations and false agendas to be spread especially in this time of importance. This is a big event that can surely turn the tides of the Philippines for better or for worse so it is important to keep your prejudice to yourself and make the right decision.