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“Here we are, living it again, as though we didn’t learn our lesson”

Profile | Filipino senator Risa Hontiveros faces jail for protecting witnesses to a brutal state-sponsored killing. Has the country’s politics come full circle?

Margaret Simons 4 July 2018 3272 words

Barely a choice: Filipino senator Risa Hontiveros. Dave Tacon

Risa Hontiveros describes herself as a martial-law baby. She is part of the generation of Filipinos who came to political awareness in the years before the people power revolution deposed dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.

Her earliest memories include the nights when, visiting her uncle, the family couldn’t return home because of the curfew imposed under martial law. She was glad: it meant sleepovers with her cousins. The children would hang over the balustrade, watching the grown-ups talk politics as they ate dinner. The food on the lazy Susan turned clockwise, paused, then turned anti-clockwise, back and forth, mirroring the adults’ talk.

Over time, support for Marcos turned to opposition, and finally to resistance, and Hontiveros settled on her own political commitment — not to armed resistance, like the Filipino Communist Party, but to democratic socialism, to working within the system for the betterment of the poor.

Now, at fifty-two, Ana Theresia Navarro Hontiveros is a senator for the Akbayan Citizens’ Action Party in the Philippines Congress. She is also an irritant to president Rodrigo Duterte, and therefore at risk of being jailed, or worse.

Hontiveros was elected to the Senate in the same poll that brought Duterte to power in 2016. Just two years later, she is one of several prominent female Duterte critics facing criminal charges. The times, she believes, are at least as bad — maybe worse — than they were under Marcos. Certainly, more people have been killed. At least 20,000 have lost their lives in the so-called war on drugs and Duterte is being investigated by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

“We martial-law babies grew up and became activists in the dying years of martial law,” she says. “We remember what the comrades before us struggled against and what they suffered, what they sacrificed. And now here we are, living it again, as though we didn’t learn our lesson. It seems worse now. The number of killings. The blatant sexism and misogyny, and the destruction of democratic institutions.”

Hontiveros could become the second senator to be jailed at Duterte’s instigation, joining Leila de Lima, the former head of the Human Rights Commission, who was convicted on drug charges described by Amnesty International as “pure fiction.” Is Hontiveros frightened? Sometimes, she admits. But today, having agreed to our interview because she believes it is important for Australians “to know, to be watching,” she is poised, immaculately turned out, and measured.

She is a mother of four, and a widow — her police officer husband died of a heart attack three years ago. Her fair skin is often commented on in a way that would be offensive in other countries. Paleness, in this country of persistent traumatising poverty, is taken as a sign of high status. Manila streets are dominated by billboards advertising skin-whitening products and it is difficult to find a moisturiser on sale that doesn’t claim to whiten as well.

She has built a career on activism on behalf of farmers, fisherfolk, unionists, dispossessed Indigenous people and the poor. But politics in this country has always been an elite game, and as Hontiveros admits, with a laugh, “I am a petit-bourgeois girl.”

It was forty years ago, in 1978, when Hontiveros joined her family in the first big “noise barrage” protest on the eve of that year’s general election. Her father was a lawyer, and some of her siblings would go on to become well-known journalists. The country’s opposition leader, Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, was contesting the election against Marcos from jail, where he had been sent on trumped-up murder and firearms charges.

Hontiveros stood with her family in their backyard, banging on pots, pans and washing basins with ladles and sticks. “It was very noisy,” she recalls, and it went on until dawn. She was twelve.

At fifteen — having just starred, in one of those striking cultural collisions, as one of the von Trapp family children in a high school production of Sound of Music — she decided to abandon any theatrical ambitions and throw her energies into the campaign against the building of the Bataan nuclear power station . Soon she was involved in the movement for nuclear disarmament.

Influenced heavily by the liberation theology inspiring Latin America at the time, she chose to go to the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Manila University because of its tradition of civic activism. In her first year, 1983, Ninoy Aquino was assassinated after returning from three years’ exile in the United States.

“After that, a thousand flowers bloomed,” she says. “The student movement, the mass movement.” She became an activist, an organiser with non-government organisations. Some of the people she was working with disappeared or were shot. Eventually the breakthrough came: her graduation coincided with the people power revolution, and the end of the Marcos regime.

The Communist Party split in the early 1990s between those who wanted to continue armed rebellion and those with faith in the new constitution. Eventually, a group of left-wing forces coalesced to become Akbayan. Hontiveros represented Akbayan in the House of Representatives from 2004 to 2010 and then, after two unsuccessful attempts, entered the Senate.

From an Australian perspective, politics in the Philippines can seem almost inexplicable, and certainly frightening. Yet this is the oldest democracy in Asia, and one based largely on the American system. It serves as an example of how bad things can get, how dangerous, when institutions are weakened, there is a powerful populist president, and the system veers off course.

The jail threat hanging over Hontiveros is a potent example. It began last August with the killing of a seventeen-year-old student, Kian Loyd delos Santos, in one of the bloodiest nights of the drug war. This particular killing — one among many — seized the popular imagination.

Delos Santos was shot dead by police in a back lane in Caloocan, part of the crowded honeycomb of metropolitan Manila. The police narrative was the standard line — that delos Santos was a drug user, that he was armed and shot at police, that he was killed in self-defence. Contrary to normal practice, though, the CCTV cameras in the area had not been switched off. Footage showed the police dragging a young man, apparently delos Santos, into the lane where his corpse was later found. The footage reverberated across the country’s social media.

As well, three eyewitnesses — two of them children — said they had seen the police punch and slap delos Santos before shooting him as he begged for his life. Interviewed in the media, the witnesses feared for their lives and sought refuge with local bishop Pablo Virgilio David. He called Hontiveros, who gave the children her personal protection and then, after a special Senate hearing was arranged, put them into the custody of the Senate.

The hashtag #justiceforkian went viral. Rallies united the population. In an echo of times past, another noise barrage was organised. It felt, for the first time, as though the people might have had enough.

“People were confronted with that visual proof of what was done to a child,” Hontiveros says. “I think even a population that by then was so almost numbed and terrorised and frightened, possibly more cowardly than brave, was just, ‘Oh my God, they did this to a kid?’”

As for the child witnesses, she will not release their names. “They are both teenagers and they witnessed the killing of their friend Kian,” she says. “They know Kian from the community, and they were so brave together… They were in fear of their lives but still they said to me, ‘We want to tell the truth about what happened to Kian because we know him. We know what he did and what he didn’t do. We know what was done to him.’”

During the Senate hearing a journalist snapped a picture of the mobile phone screen of Duterte’s justice secretary, Vitaliano Aguirre, while he was texting a member of the organisation Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption, urging them to press charges against Hontiveros for “kidnapping” the children. The VACC, while independent in theory, is in fact close to the president, who has appointed its principals to important government positions. It was the VACC that initiated the charges against de Lima and against the recently sacked chief justice of the Supreme Court, Maria Lourdes Sereno, another Duterte critic.

Hontiveros showed the Senate a picture of Aguirre’s text message and called on him to resign, but the kidnapping charges against her went ahead anyway, along with new wiretapping allegations over her distributing of the photo of Aguirre’s mobile phone.

The woman responsible for investigating charges against government officials, ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales, is an appointee of the previous administration, and seen as independent. But she reaches the age of compulsory retirement next month, and Hontiveros expects a new ombudsman to be appointed “close to the president’s heart. And then the charges against me, which have been stuck for months, will move very fast.”

Both cases against her are weak, she tells me. She says she had the permission of the parents to safeguard the children, and that the wiretap allegations are trivial and may not even proceed to court. But then the charges against Senator de Lima were also weak.

She also believes that the delos Santos case is part of a slowly changing attitude to Duterte’s war on drugs among the population. Recent opinion polls have highlighted a contradiction. “People will say, ‘Yes, I support the president, yes, I support the war on drugs,’ but they are also saying, ‘I’m afraid that my family or relatives will be the next victim. I support the war on drugs but I prefer that the suspect be arrested not killed.’”

The contradiction, she speculates, might come from the fact that opinion polling, in this country of high illiteracy and limited access to technology, is done in person during visits to local government areas, or barangays . Local elected barangay captains may well know who the survey respondents are, and have a political stake in the results. And so, she speculates, people will talk in general about their concerns, but caution intervenes when they’re asked explicitly if they support the president.

Having attended Australian Labor Party national conferences as a guest, Hontiveros is in a good position to make comparisons between the two systems. Strong party identity — the way conflicts were worked through without fracturing the party itself — is something she envies. “We want to be able to emulate in our own way more mature democracies,” she says. “Part of our challenge with Akbayan is trying to be a real political party in a vacuum, in the absence of a real political party system.”

It is hard, she says, to build a party at the same time as pursuing reform, all the while under duress from the government. “We are building our house and living in it at the same time.”

In Australia, we tend to curse the party system, or at least its factionalism. Spend a few weeks examining Filipino politics and you will begin to see political parties as a blessing. They provide a means of pursuing power and policy that transcends and constrains the personal.

In the Philippines, everything is personal. You can see it in the family and friendship networks that are the main means of survival and mutual support, both for the poor and for the elite. You can see it in the patronage, cronyism, dynasties and corruption.

Political parties are more flags of convenience than machines for pursuing policy programs and contesting power. New ones are born and die with great rapidity. Politicians routinely switch allegiance. Other candidates run as guests in one party without leaving their party of origin, some running under a number of party banners simultaneously.

No party can credibly claim to have its roots in a defined part of the population, such as workers or business. Most lack a defining policy or ideological vision. Voters tend to support individual candidates — often celebrities — and political dynasties — such as those of the Marcoses and the Aquinos — more than parties. It’s not hard to find people who cast one vote for Duterte as president in 2016, and another for opposition candidates. I met a man who had voted for both Duterte and Hontiveros, and saw no contradiction because he believed both to have courage and integrity.

When Duterte came to power he did so as part of a micro-party. Now, thanks to turncoats from the other parties, he holds a supermajority in the lower house of Congress and also has the numbers in the Senate. He has repeatedly insisted he is a “leftist” and a socialist — the first president of the Philippines to make such a claim.

On the one hand he has praised the legacy of Ferdinand Marcos; on the other he has boasted about his ties with leftist rebel groups and is close to key members of the Communist Party. Senior figures in the extreme left — which is in armed rebellion against the government across much of the countryside — also sit in Duterte’s cabinet and are part of the government. All this complicates the fraught business of organising opposition to the government.

What insights can Hontiveros offer about the apparent bundle of contradictions that is Rodrigo Duterte? In the early days, she says, there was “debate among comrades about his game plan. We were saying, ‘Is there a game plan or is he just making it up as he goes along?’ But I think he does have a game plan and in fact it is very simple. It’s not a platform of governance, but simply to centre all power on himself, and to do what he wants and to get away with anything.”

Corruption continues unchecked, she says, but even more than money “it’s really power, and I think power for its own sake,” that drives Duterte. “He’s really trying to push the limits and see how far he can go… That’s why he’s very sensitive to public pushback and his survey results. He has a lot of things on many different burners all at the same time and whichever seems to make headway, whichever group of his supporters is working on that, then he will give a signal to that to advance it. He is quite Machiavellian, and he’s not stupid. He’s very smart.”

Under the constitution, presidents are limited to a single six-year term. But Duterte has already announced that he wants to change the constitution to introduce what he describes as a federal system of government. Exactly what he means is not yet clear, but Hontiveros suspects that the aim is to allow him to serve more than one term, or at least to select his successor.

Duterte’s hold on public popularity faces its first true test at the midterm elections next May, and they will also be a test of Akbayan. In an engaging display of frankness, the opposition party’s website proclaims that its “coalition character” is both strength and weakness. “On the one hand, it provides wider space and latitude for a pluralist exercise and consensus building. On the other hand, it remains relatively loose and slow in responding to challenges, opportunities and threats.”

Akbayan has pushed measures to prevent and even outlaw political dynasties, and yet it is largely dependent for its impact on one of those dynasties. Suppressed during the administration of Gloria Arroyo between 2001 and 2010, the party made serious political headway only from 2009, when it aligned with the Liberal Party, which is dominated by the Aquino dynasty.

Being in coalition with the Liberal Party when it was in government under president Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino — son of Ninoy Aquino and his wife, former president Cory Aquino — was a matter of “making up the rules as we went along, in the absence of a coalition government set of rules or a system.”

That democratic institutions are so under threat in the Philippines is not, as Hontiveros acknowledges, entirely Duterte’s fault. The disease goes deeper, and the blame is shared with her own side of politics.

Through the three decades since the fall of Marcos, including those of the Aquino administration, poverty has continued to define the lives of most Filipinos. It has hardly shifted, even when the economy improved.

For the Filipino poor, life is stressful beyond toleration. According to government statistics, more than a quarter of Filipino families lack the income needed to meet basic food needs. Another quarter live precariously, saved from desperation only by an insecure job or a remittance from a family member working overseas. The middle class live alongside the poor, constantly aware of the ease with which they could slip down.

As a member of the lower house during Noynoy’s presidency, Hontiveros was able to initiate key pieces of legislation, including bills to subsidise the cost of medicines, reform agriculture and most crucially, liberalise reproductive health laws, which theoretically guarantees universal access to contraception and sex education. The change was vigorously opposed by the Catholic Church, which launched an appeal in the Supreme Court that weakened it and delayed its implementation.

Even now, says Hontiveros, implementation is a battle. “From the Senate we continue the oversight, trying to make sure there is a budget allocation for every year, and also with our civil society partners fighting for its full implementation by local government.”

Other liberal reforms came during the Aquino presidency. The economy improved, though largely thanks to many Filipinos effectively voting against their country with their feet. More than one-in-ten now work overseas, largely in menial jobs, and the remittances they send home to their families are the largest single contributor to GDP. More recently, call centres and other organisations conducting back-office functions for overseas companies have begun to overtake remittances. Call-centre operatives are paid more than teachers, social workers or nurses.

“Our beautiful people power revolution… we made mistakes,” says Hontiveros. “Apparently, we weren’t able to broaden it enough physically and deepen it economically and socially over the past three decades to the majority who are still poor.”

Meanwhile, the Liberals have had their own corruption and pork-barrelling scandals. The hopes of the people power revolution are now so discredited that the term “yellow” — the Liberal Party colour associated with the revolution — is used as a term of political abuse.

This, Hontiveros says, is the challenge for the future. She has attracted a strong personal following and almost celebrity status, fuelled, she hopes, by her legislative record, most recently on mental health. She is committed to continued reform — if she gets the chance.

She has visited de Lima in jail. Conditions are grim. The fifty-eight-year-old has been refused an air conditioner despite bouts of pneumonia and difficulty breathing in the punishing heat. She has no television, mobile phone or computer, but a collection of her handwritten letters from jail has just been published and distributed with messages of support from politicians — including Noynoy Aquino — and journalists. In one letter, de Lima reflected that she was probably safer in jail “in this walled and guarded place” than she would be outside.

Hontiveros says she would hate jail. It would divide her from her children and her friends. She is not sure how she would cope. She tries not to think about it too much.

But after all those years of political work, there is barely a choice. The administration will pursue her whether she pursues issues or doesn’t. “So I might as well just keep on, and try to be part of building this house, and do what I can.” ●

Margaret Simons

Margaret Simons is a journalist and writer. Her books include Malcolm Fraser: The Political Memoirs , co-written with Malcolm Fraser, and Penny Wong: Passion and Principle .

Topics: Asia | biography | East Asia | Philippines | politics

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Risa Hontiveros releases first book and it is about empowering women

Her new book is a guide for filipinas during the new normal and beyond.

“When you educate a woman, you set her free,” icon, author, and famous TV presenter Oprah Winfrey said. Throughout history, women, who were once deprived of reading and education, change the world with books in their hands. We saw how a book can change a young girl's life, and while we are seeing more and more empowered women taking the pen and writing their own stories to inspire others internationally, the same cannot be said in our local landscape with only a few non-fiction books geared toward Filipinas today.

To help shape the minds and inspire today’s Filipina readers, Sen. Risa Hontiveros penned a book that mirrors her journey and gives advice specific to Filipinas. Titled “Healthy Buhay , Happy Mama: Risa Hontiveros’s Journey Through Motherhood,” the book weaves tales about “work-life balance, finances, health and wellness, and navigating the new normal as a mother.”

“There are of course many areas I could have concentrated on for my first book,” she said. “I chose these in particular as they all interrelate. Finding strength in one pillar reinforces the others and vice versa. I hope that other Filipinas will feel the same force-multiplier effect that occurs when developing any of these focus areas, just like it has for me.”

“Healthy Buhay , Happy Mama” is published by Bookshelf PH, a boutique publisher and marketplace for books, ebooks, and audiobooks. The title is one of several new ones from the publisher aimed at providing advice to Filipinos for the new digital economy. Sam Balinado, the head of content at Bookshelf PH, explained that Hontiveros was selected to lead the thrust focusing on women on account of her well-roundedness.

“Risa Hontiveros is not only a successful journalist, politician, and community organizer, but also a mother and daughter,” said Balinado, who works with partner thought leaders and authors in romance, business, and women empowerment. “We wanted to tap the insights of a leader like Risa, who shows it’s truly possible to achieve success across multiple personal and professional areas. You just need to consciously think about what your dream for each area is, and then meticulously design your life to reach those goals.”

“We’ve always been one of the most forward-thinking countries when it comes to women, but that’s no reason for us to rest on our laurels. I believe there is still plenty of room for improvement,” Hontveros added. “My hope is that by discussing what it takes for women to succeed as individuals, we can recognize what we still need to do as a society to make it easier for us to do so.”

The first two hundred copies of the book will be personally signed by Hontiveros, and it can be pre-ordered here .

Hontiveros' second Senate term a success of marrying the progressive and the personal: analysts

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Martial Law Babies: Sen. Risa Hontiveros, the sound of activism

Sen. Risa Hontiveros has emerged as one of the most accomplished legislators in the post-dictatorship era. CONTRIBUTED

(7th in a series of profiles of Martial Law Babies as we prepare to mark the 50th anniversary of the martial law declaration in September. Ferdinand Marcos tried and failed to mold this generation into his version of the Hitler Youth. They fought his dictatorship instead.)

Only later did we understand what fascism meant. But that was the world we woke up to as children the day Ferdinand Marcos imposed martial law in September 1972 — a world where one man had all the power and abused it shamelessly to plunder, torture and kill.

Risa Hontiveros, now a senator running for reelection, had another unusual, but fun, early exposure to fascism during the Marcos years. She played Louisa, an adorable but mischievous teenager, one of Captain Von Trapp’s seven children in “The Sound of Music.”

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The Repertory Philippines production also featured Lea Salonga, Monique Wilson and Menchu and Raymond Lauchengco, who went on to successful acting and singing careers. Risa also had hoped for a career in theater and music — and she certainly had a promising debut.

But then things changed.

“In the closing scene of ‘The Sound of Music,’ the Von Trapp family was really fleeing from the Nazi invasion of Austria,” she recalled. But the bullying, the terror, the repression that the Von Trapps fled from in a Europe dominated by Adolf Hitler — she realized it was part of her reality as a young Filipino. It was her world.

So instead of the theater, she ventured into a bigger, more important stage together with  other members of our generation, the Martial Law Babies, to embrace new struggles and songs — the sound of activism.

“ Sobrang parang nag-dilang anghel . It’s almost like the angels spoke,” she said of her experience with “The Sound of Music.” “That theatrical, unforgettable experience, parang bisperas ng pagiging aktibista ko. It turned out to be the prelude to my transformation as an activist.”

That transformation led Risa Hontiveros to become one of the most important political leaders to emerge from the martial law generation. She is helping lead another critical battle: to defend the memory of the fight against dictatorship from being erased and distorted by a new wave of fascism led by Duterte and the Marcoses.

The young Risa Hontiveros (third from left in left photo) played Louisa, an adorable but mischievous teenager, one of Captain Von Trapp’s seven children in “The Sound of Music.” The Repertory Philippines production also featured Lea Salonga, Monique Wilson and Menchu and Raymond Lauchengco, who went on to successful acting and singing careers. CONTRIBUTED

It is, in a way, part of a global fight, as the world reels from the resurgence of authoritarianism, underscored by Vladimir Putin and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

There is much to be learned from what our generation endured and accomplished under Marcos, Risa says.

“We pierced through that veil of Marcos,” she told me on a video call last week. “He had his own propaganda project, daunting enough. Pero naging classic sa atin, it became a classic slogan for us: ‘ MarcosI Hitler! Diktador! Tuta!’ It captured our imagination.”

“Ang pinaka naka-naooffend ako ay iyong babaluktutin, ipepervert iyong memory of the anti-dictatorship struggle. … I am truly offended by efforts to distort and pervert the memory of the anti-dictatorship struggle. It is the 50th anniversary of martial law. We know what we are up against, a decades-long historical revisionism project. It’s so exhausting to contemplate.”

Why she abandoned her first love

A theater career certainly would have been less stressful. And Risa hopes eventually for a chance to return to her first passion. “ Talaga, Boying, pag wala na ako sa formal politics, babalik ako sa teatro and music. Mag-o-audition ako sa PETA. Magbaba-backup singer ako kina Noel Cabanong. Once I leave politics, I will go back to theater and music. I’ll audition at PETA. I’ll be a backup singer. I’ll audition for nanay and lola roles. I don’t mind.”

After “The Sound of Music,” Risa had planned to audition for the role of Liat, the native girl who falls for Lt. Joe Cable in the musical “South Pacific.” Looking back, that would have been a truly odd role for Risa. For it’s hard to imagine a human rights and social justice warrior, and a staunch advocate for women’s rights playing the quiet, submissive girl, dancing with her fingers while Bloody Mary sang “Happy Talk?”

An encounter with a different group of “Marys” took Risa on a different path. The summer after her sophomore year at St. Scholastica’s High School in Manila, her mother took her to a forum on nuclear disarmament. “ Doon ko unang nakita at narinig iyong Tres Marias . That’s when I first saw and heard the Tres Marias,” she said — referring to three leading women figures in the fight against the dictatorship: Nini Quezon Avancena; Sister Mary John Mananzan; and Mary Concepcion Bautista.

“I was so inspired by them. Inabandon ko iyong first love ko , theater and music. I abandoned my first love.”

The education of an activist

When she returned to school for her junior year, she didn’t join the glee club or do any more theater auditions. Instead, she launched a school organization opposed to nuclear weapons, the presence of U.S. military bases and the Marcos dictatorship. She grew close to teachers who were active in the fight against the regime. “They set me on this path of activism.”

Her activism deepened in college. She had just entered Ateneo when Ninoy Aquino was assassinated. “ Doon talaga namulaklak iyong youth and student movement. That’s when the student movement really blossomed.” And Risa was right at the center of it. “ Buhos sa youth student movement. I went all in in the youth and student movement,” she said.

Unlike the typical private school colegiala , her activism extended beyond Loyola Heights and the Makati confetti crowd. After her freshman year, Risa went on her first immersion: she lived with a fisherfolk family in Laguna, and came face to face with armed bullying for the first time.

Tatay Freddie Ignacio tried to eke out a living by fishing near and around fishponds owned by big politicians or officers of the military and the police. “ Pag lumalapit iyong bangka ni Tatay Freddie, talagang tututukan kami ng baril. Every time our boat got close, they would point their guns at us. Unbelievable.”

Risa helped lead a campaign to aid farmers in Negros after the sugar industry collapsed around 1984. One of the grim images from that disaster remains fresh in her mind: the magazine cover photo of an emaciated child named Joel Abong, which sparked outrage over the way Marcos’ allies showed little regard for the suffering of the Negros farmers and even used violence to quell their protests.

She was a social democrat, but Risa worked with rival national democrats and even grew to admire some of their leaders. One of them was Lean Alejandro, the most prominent youth leader of the martial law generation who was assassinated in 1987.

“ Sobrang inidolize ko si Lean Alejandro,” she said. “I really idolized Lean. He was not vanguardist toward us who were socdems. He was not sectarian. I super respected him.  Oh my god, when they killed, god damn. Hindi ko maigine na I’m old enough now to be his parent. I can’t imagine that I am today old enough to be his parent then.” Lean will always be remembered by the Martial Law Babies as the young leader who was killed when he was “at the prime of his youth.”

“He should have been one of our national leaders, not just in the mass movement, but also in government,” Risa said. Eventually, she stepped in to take on those leadership challenges.

The activist legislator

After the fall of Marcos, Risa emerged as one of the most accomplished legislators in Congress. She has led the charge on critical issues, including human rights, health care and the fight against poverty.

She has also become outspoken in the fight for women’s rights — an issue that other political leaders, including some progressives, often stayed away from or considered unimportant.

Her leadership in the fight for the law on reproductive health was critical. And she has taken an important role in the effort to end the Philippines’ shameful status as one of the countries in the world where divorce is still illegal, taking on the shallow, backward and dangerous machismo and misogyny of the political establishment and the Catholic Church in a society where women often find themselves trapped in abusive marriages.

Risa’s Twitter retort to those opposed to divorce is classic: “Don’t want divorce? Then don’t get one! But let others have a second chance in life.”

Defending a memory Duterte considers dangerous

The rise of Duterte, of a leader who inspired mass killings, who shamelessly jokes about rape and the abuse of women — that’s been hard to take, Risa acknowledged.

“ Iyong patayan. Iyong pambabastos sa babae . The killings. The disrespect for women. Almost everything about him offends me talaga. … We’ve been bracing for six years, saying we’re going to have to survive this. We’re going to have to fight this. We’re going to have to defeat this in the end.”

“He is messing with the minds of our young people who didn’t have the experience, who don’t have even a vicarious memory of the dictatorship, using the money they plundered from us and teamed up with the new money of the president and his cohort in that fake news, trolling machinery.”

Risa is part of Leni Robredo’s growing movement to defeat another Marcos, and to restore the freedoms and rights that have been severely eroded under Duterte. A key part of that struggle is to help people — especially young Filipinos — remember and understand what happened under Marcos.

It’s an uphill battle. But Risa says she stays strong by remembering the people who inspired her as a young woman living under the Marcos regime. “I always go back to my original inspirations for why I chose to become an activist.”

One of them actually taught her a practical lesson in the importance of persistence and strength in taking on uphill challenges. Lorenzo Tañada was already an elderly symbol of the fight against Marcos, and was known as “the grand old man” of the opposition, when he agreed to speak before Risa’s high school group at Saint Scho. It’s a story that she still recalls with fondness.

Sen. Hontiveros in one of her health consultations with constituents. CONTRIBUTED

Risa accompanied the late senator to the event venue which was on the fourth floor of the school. “Ka Tanny was already white-haired and bent over his cane. He walked up four floors all the while I was apologizing, ‘Sir, sorry pinaakyat ka namin sa fourth floor.’”

“ Alam mo , I cannot forget what he told me. ‘ Iha , as long as there are young people like you who want to talk about issues, I will climb stairs to talk to you.”

Now, it is Risa who is doing the climbing and the talking, working to make sure young Filipinos remember the fight, the struggle that Ka Tanny led with so much grace and courage  — so we don’t slide back “as if nothing happened, as if nobody fought and sacrificed, as if we didn’t expel the dictatorship in 1986.”

Duterte and the Marcoses are clearly threatened by that past, by the history of struggle and resistance, including the story of how young Filipinos, the Martial Law Babies, stood up against and defeated a bully and a thug. It is, Risa says, a dangerous story in the eyes of dictators and would-be-dictators.

“The president is trying to take away that dangerous memory of the anti-dictatorship struggle, the dangerous memory of people power — which is not just a memory, but still has so much potential to push back against him.”

“The prospect of another six years and stepping further back — nakakaiyak talaga. It really would make one cry. But we’re still fighting. … I always say lifelong activist ako . I’m a lifelong activist.”

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Senator Risa Hontiveros hosts Women’s Leadership Summit with Filipina leaders

• 28 March, 2022
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On Saturday, March 26, 2022, Senator Risa Hontiveros met with Filipina leaders at the Astbury in Poblacion , Makati to discuss the most pressing issues facing them as women’s month drew to a close. The female leaders in attendance at this Women’s Leadership Summit were diverse, spanning corporate, entrepreneurship, small business, social impact, startups, academe, media, and more. 

The Women’s Leadership Summit was anchored by a fireside chat with Senator Hontiveros facilitated by Katya Lichauco , the editor of Big Deal and co-author of Fearless Filipinas II , two books that discuss women’s issues and celebrate female empowerment. 

In addition to her role as policymaker and advocate, Hontiveros also shared insights from her perspective as an author. In late 2021, she published Healthy Buhay, Happy Mama: Risa Hontiveros’ Journey through Motherhood with Bookshelf PH , a publishing house in the Philippines focused on helping authors and brands with everything from self-publishing to printing .

She again reiterated the challenges of work-life balance as a career woman and mother, this time emphasizing the role of government to help on this front. She pointed to the two most recent bills she passed – one which raised the age of consent law from 12 to 16, and the other which made it easier for people to adopt – as examples of how the government can help women and families. 

Despite these recent successes, Hontiveros was not content to rest on her laurels.

“There is still so much to do for women and our families. That’s why it’s important to look at women’s month not only as a stand-alone celebration but as an occasion to stop and set the agenda for the rest of the year. We must advance these issues year-round, so our women get the support we deserve,” said Hontiveros. 

In keeping with this principle, the fireside chat was followed by an open forum during which Hontiveros engaged in discussion with the women in attendance. These women were selected on account of their leadership in their respective fields, ensuring that the vibrant discussion could also translate into action. Many also served as leaders in various women’s organizations, which would amplify the discussion even further. 

Hontiveros was grateful for the open forum.

“Improving the condition of women will always be a multisectoral effort. We need the government to enact solutions, industry to help execute them, and the media to spotlight other areas for improvement. Based on the quality of the discussion at this Women’s Leadership Summit, it’s clear we can achieve the high-level collaboration to make the Philippines a world-class example of female representation, inclusion, and advancement,” said Hontiveros.

In addition to author Risa Hontiveros, Healthy Buhay, Happy Mama was made possible through editor-in-chief Mio Borromeo , executive editor Pancho Dizon , deputy editorial director Kyle Nate , managing editor Sam Balinado , copyeditor Monica Padillo , research consultant Monette Quiogue , and layout artist Josephine Daluz , and Bookshelf PH, which helps authors, thought leaders, and brands with media relations , social media marketing , content marketing , and other creative services . 

Hontiveros’ book can be ordered here: https://bookshelf.com.ph/pages/healthy-buhay-happy-mama

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Sen. Risa Hontiveros educates Benildean youth on advocacy, leadership, and elections

“Having [an] advocacy is a beautiful thing because it drives social progress.” – Sen. Risa Hontiveros

To direct students in forming and standing for their own advocacies, Sen. Risa Hontiveros led a discussion for Benildeans wherein she shared her personal experiences in her journey as a senator. The talk was spearheaded by ADLAW Political Party, earlier today, October 29 at the UN Simulation Room, Mutien Hall, Taft Campus.

Benilde as an “ivory tower”

Vice President for Lasallian Mission and Student Life Mr. Neil Pariñas opened the event with a speech emphasizing the Benilde Mission Week, “Our focus of celebration are the formation for the mission and social development […] the topic for discussion jives with our celebration of the Benilde Mission Week.” He also highlighted in his speech the transformative learning of Benilde’s Social Development Framework. “Learning is not limited to lectures inside the classroom, your [students’] learnings should resolve to something, and that something is transformation,” Pariñas explained. Pariñas encouraged Benildeans to be part of societal issues as he compared Benilde with an “ivory tower,” saying “Outside Benilde is the bigger and real world, and as Benildeans we are invited, encouraged and challenged to be part of the real society and to change that society so that it will be more inclusive and innovative,” he ended.  An advocate for health, children, and women’s rights Senator Risa Hontiveros started her discussion with icebreaker questions, “Sino dito ang magce-celebrate ng malamig na Pasko?” and “Sino dito ang members ng team sawi?” to further engage the Millennial and Generation Z audience. These hugot lines were incorporated in her discussion regarding advocacies.

“If you want to make the world a better place, kailangan ng hugot, at lahat ng may pinanghuhugutan ay may kasamang sakit […] Karamihan ng advocates nararanasan nating masawi sa mga pinaglalaban natin, ” Hontiveros expounded, citing mental health and gender equality advocates who had bad experiences inclined with the area they are advocating. Moreover, Senator Hontiveros shared her journey as an advocate, relating to the theme of “Youth Education on Advocacy, Leadership, and Election,” for today’s talk. “I was 12 years old when I joined my first noise barrage when Senator Ninoy Aquino was running for the then interim Batasang Pambansa from prison,” citing EDSA People Power as her eye-opener for towards what the people can do.  “I saw it with my own eyes how through peaceful protest, nabago ng pangkaraniwang tao ang landas ng Pilipinas,” she said.

Embodying advocacies

Senator Hontiveros emphasized how the world is unfair while some are born in tremendous advantages, others are born in poverty.  “Inequality is an injustice which drives us to do what we [advocates] want,” she said. Inclined with the welfare of the people she advocates, Senator Hontiveros discussed the bills and laws she passed in the senate.  “Every measure I file in the Senate over the past few years carries a piece of myself,” she stated.  Morever, citing the Safe Spaces Law , Hontiveros noted “the dignity of the person is sacred, and to that extent being respectful in language. Hindi lang siya isyu ng [Good Manners and Right Conduct] GMRC , pambabastos sa tao, wolf whistling, cat-calling at pamboboso .”

For the SOGIE Equality Bill, she said “ Lahat ng tao may inborn dignity, however this bill affirms the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community to the same rights the we [non-LGBTQIA+] have such as education, health care, basic services and work opportunities.” Hontiveros also mentioned advocacies that are responses to specific problems such as the Mental Health Act , The Expanded Maternity Leave Law and the Interns’ Rights and Welfare Act. “Having [an]advocacy is a beautiful thing because it drives social progress,” Hontiveros emphasized. She encouraged the audience to choose an area where they think they can move the society forward.

“You are student-leaders in one of the most innovative schools in our country, and the most innovative thing you can do is to simply stand for what is right,” she said. “Our leaders reflect our country, our leaders reflect the hopes and dreams of the Filipino people. And you my dear young ones are our hopes and dreams […] choose your advocacy and fight,” Senator Hontiveros emphasized as she ended her speech. Meanwhile, ADLAW Chairperson Margaux Reconquista ended the event with a remark for the Benildean community that focused on the youth’s purpose. “Today’s forum is a reminder that we are all part of something bigger than our community […] My fellow Benildeans, I urge you to take part in building a progressive and more pro-active community in and out of campus,” Reconquista said. The forum aims to educate the Benildean community on the importance of grassroots leadership, participation on societal issues, advocacy-making, and practicing clean and honest elections, which establishes the essence of celebration of Benilde’s Mission Week. Photos by Fritz Reyes

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Republic of the Philippines

Senate Electoral Tribunal

Hon. senator risa hontiveros.

Senator Risa Hontiveros is a health and women’s rights advocate, a proud activist, and a champion of the basic sectors. She is the Philippines’ first socialist woman Senator.

Senator Risa is a proud member of the Akbayan Party and is its current National Chairperson. She has been fighting the good fight from an early age. When she was in high school at Saint Scholastica’s College Manila, she organized a student group that campaigned against the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. In college, she fought for peace and social justice as a student council leader. In 2001, Hontiveros received the Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) Award for Peace Advocacy for her work in the peace talks with the national Democratic Front (NDF). Four years later in 2005, she was one of 27 Filipinas that joined a group of 1,000 women worldwide who were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Senator Hontiveros also served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth). She pushed for expanded benefits and coverage, specifically for indigents and senior citizens.

She currently serves in the 18th Congress as the Chairperson of the Committee on Women, Children, and Family Relations, which was also the committee she headed in the 17th Congress. She was also the Chairperson of the Committee on Health for the 17th Congress, and later became its Vice Chairperson.

Senator Hontiveros continues to push for legislation which fights social injustice, inequality, and the struggle for stronger gender rights for all. As part of her flagship measures for the new Congress, she recently re-filed the SOGIE Equality Bill which affirms and protects the rights of members of the LGBTQ community from discrimination, and the Divorce Bill.

She also re-filed a measure to strengthen the Anti-Hospital Detention Law. Her other filed measures are The Universal Social Pension for Senior Citizens Bill, The Girls not Brides Bill, the Prevention of Teenage Pregnancy Bill, the Expanded Solo Parents Welfare Bill, a bill to raise the age of sexual consent in the country, the On-Site, In-City, Near City Resettlement Program Bill, and a bill for the creation of a Department of Ocean, Fisheries and Aquatic Resources. Other bills include the Magna Carta for Seafarers, the Bibong Barangay Health Workers Bill, which seeks to provide a fixed allowance as well as statutory benefits for all barangay health workers. She also filed the Students Rights and Welfare Bill, the National Land Use Management Act, the Anti-Elder Abuse Act, and the Public Health Intervention for Drug Use Act.

In her first term as senator, Senator Risa has passed 13 laws: the Expanded Maternity Leave Law, the strengthened Anti-Hospital Deposit Law, the Special Protection of Children in Situations of Armed Conflict Law, the Bangsamoro Organic Law, the Universal Healthcare Law, the Philippine HIV & AIDS Policy Law, the amended Magna Carta for Persons with Disabilities which provides mandatory Philhealth coverage for all PWD’s, the Philippine Mental Health Law, the Safe Streets and Public Spaces Law, the First 1,000 Days law or the Kalusugan at Nutrisyon ng mga Nanay Law, the Speech Pathology Law, the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program Law, and the Simulated Birth Rectification Law.

The Mental Health Law is the Philippines’ first true national policy on mental health, while the Expanded Maternity Leave Law places the Philippines at par with international standards for both maternal and infant care. Risa has also strengthened legislation against sexual harassment through the Safe Spaces Act, which penalizes wolf-whistling, catcalling, flashing, groping, and other forms of street harassment.

Before her time in the Senate, Risa was a two-term partylist congressional representative. She worked for the passage of the Reproductive Health (RH) Law together with civil society groups and fellow advocates, a landmark measure which provides women and families access to reproductive health and modern family planning services. She was also one of the principal authors of the Cheaper Medicines Law, and one of the key sponsors of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program with Extension and Reform (CARPER) Law.

Risa Hontiveros graduated Cum Laude from the Ateneo de Manila University with a Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences. Before she was a lawmaker, she was a community organizer and peace advocate. She was also a successful television journalist and news anchor. In her private life, she is a solo mother to four children and shares with them her love of music, culture, and the arts.

Source: Senate of the Philippines

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Risa Hontiveros: A singular struggle

On one hand, naming the country’s first sovereign wealth fund as “Maharlika” clearly harkens back to the supposed “good old days” of dictatorship, when political repression went hand in hand with kleptocratic governance and, crucially, monumentality. The crucial element of the whole “Maharlika era,” when the ruling family unabashedly styled itself as a royal dynasty with ancient pretensions, was the “edifice complex”: namely, the systematic deployment of grand projects, which created lots of publicity bang with lots of questionably spent bucks. It’s not too difficult, therefore, to decipher the true motivation behind directly attaching our new sovereign wealth fund to the family brand of the current occupants (anew) of the Malacañang Palace.

The seeming railroading of the MIF, meanwhile, also reflects the mediocrity of the legislative branch, which, until recently, had only passed four (out of 42) legislative priorities of the incumbent. And the sad thing about the MIF is that it is large enough to raise concerns over fiscal sustainability in a heavily indebted, import-dependent nation, but its projected size is also embarrassingly small compared to the trillion-dollar war chest of established sovereign wealth funds out there.

Here enters Sen. Risa Hontiveros, who, once again, was the only dissenting voice in the Senate. Even after a supermajority of her colleagues tried to spin their version of the MIF as sufficiently safeguarded, the fiercely independent-minded stateswoman maintained that “the fund is not what we need now” and is yet to “pass the test of economic viability” before being taken seriously. She also made it clear that she “will be watching intently” the implementing rules and regulations of the MIF, once signed into law, to “ensure that the prohibitions we put in place and the wins we were able to secure during the plenary deliberations are not lost.” Far from grandstanding, Hontiveros’ latest intervention echoed her unquestionable track record as the leading “fiscalizer” in our legislature.

Months earlier, she was the sole nationally elected official to vote against the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. She cited key academic works, which showed the Philippines will likely be a net loser, since our “trade balance would worsen by $264 million per year and it would lose tariff revenues of $58 million per year.”

Without question, Hontiveros has been the singular genuine opposition figure in the Senate. And, more broadly, the only nationally elected one in the government. For some reason, however, Hontiveros’ substantive and principled-based interventions have neither been sufficiently covered by the mainstream media nor wholeheartedly backed by social media accounts associated with the opposition.

As far as opposition-affiliated thought leaders are concerned, the bulk of their focus seems to be still zeroed in on either the former vice president Leonor “Leni” Robredo or the Nobel laureate Maria Ressa. Without question, Robredo and Ressa are among the most remarkable women leaders of our era. And they deserve all the support and recognition that they have been enjoying in recent years.

Robredo has also done great work when it comes to transforming the Angat Buhay Foundation, currently led by the compassionate and capable Raphael “Raffy” Magno, into a potential mitochondria of a broader progressive grassroots movement. Following the release of her new book, “Tayo Ang Liwanag,” a visibly rejuvenated and inspired Robredo made it clear, “the fight continues … We can never quit.”

Ressa, on her part, has helped transform the Philippine media landscape in the past decade through the deployment of brave journalism and cutting-edge analytics.

Lest we forget, however, Hontiveros is now the de facto leader of the opposition. Against all odds, she managed to secure reelection in the hotly contested Senate. Over the years, she overcame a torrent of misogyny, Red-tagging, and a whole host of challenges, from which many conventional liberal figures were insulated. For some, not only is Hontiveros the sole opposition figure in the upper chamber, but arguably also the only true progressive to have made it to national office in recent memory. Hers has been a singular struggle, but it doesn’t have to be a lonely fight for far too long.

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HONTIVEROS, RISA (AKBAYAN)

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• 2022 Elections
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• Ana Theresia Hontiveros

Ana Theresia Hontiveros, popularly known as Risa Hontiveros (born on February 24, 1966 in Manila) is a women's rights advocate and former activist who used to be a representative of the Akbayan party list. It took Hontiveros three tries before winning a Senate seat in 2016. Among her key contributions as a senator is the passing of the Mental Health Law. Hontiveros has staunchly opposed the Duterte government's bloody war on drugs and attacks on media, among others.

To know more about what people want to know about Ana Theresia Hontiveros , visit : Main Profile of Ana Theresia Hontiveros

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One more try: Hontiveros sponsors SOGIE equality bill in Senate plenary

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This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

SOGIE BILL. Senator Risa Hontiveros attends a hybrid Senate session on December 16, 2020.

Screenshot from Senate PRIB

Senator Risa Hontiveros on Wednesday, December 16, sponsored the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Expression and Sex Characteristics (SOGIESC) Equality Bill at the Senate plenary.

This is the second time Hontiveros is bringing the proposed measure up for debate on the Senate floor, and she called on her fellow lawmakers to be “allies” of the LGBTQ+ community.

The SOGIESC Equality Bill also reached the plenary on Hontiveros’ sponsorship in the 17th Congress, which ended in June 2019. However, it languished in the period of interpellations.

Hontiveros refiled the proposal in the 18th Congress, and it is now reiterated as Senate Bill No. 1934 . She hopes that this time, the bill would finally be put to a vote.

“As we are about to close this challenging year, I am honored to present again to the plenary a piece of legislation, so dear to my heart – a bill which has become a battle cry of our younger generation searching for validation and acceptance; a long-standing plea of advocates and allies who have been begging these halls to listen and take a stand; a beacon of hope for Filipino parents who just wanted to see their children grow up without fear of stigma and discrimination,” Hontiveros said in her sponsorship speech.

A devout Catholic, Hontiveros quoted Pope Francis, “If someone is gay and searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”

The opposition senator then addressed long-standing questions and criticisms of her proposed measure.

“Humihingi ba ito ng special rights? Lahat ng tao ay may sexual orientation at gender identity or expression. Lahat tayo ay kasamang mapoprotektahan ng batas na ito. Ang sinasabi lang natin, straight ka mang lalake o babae, bakla, lesbyana, bisexual, transgender, o queer, lahat tayo ay may ambag sa lipunan, lahat tayo pantay-pantay, ” she said.

(Is this asking for special rights? We all have a sexual orientation and gender identity or expression. All of us will together be protected by this law. All we are saying is, whether you are a straight man or woman, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or queer, we all contribute to society, we are all equal.)

On the question of whether the bill would encroach on parents’ upbringing of their children, Hontiveros said all it wants is a guarantee that no limitations are set on a child or person because of their sexual identity – something no parent would want for their child, she added.

On whether the bill violates religious freedom, Hontiveros said the proposed measure would only govern matters of state, and does not aim to change religious teachings.

“Kagaya na rin nang sabi ni Pope Francis, ‘LGBTQ people are children of God.’ Tayo pa bang mga relihiyoso ang magsasara ng ating mga puso at isipan? Hindi ba’t compassion at kindness ang mga pangunahing tinuturo ng simbahan?” she said.

(As Pope Francis also said, ‘LGBTQ people are children of God.’ Are we who are religious going to be the ones to shut our hearts and minds? Aren’t compassion and kindness the primary teachings of the church?)

“Isn’t passing the SOGIE Equality Bill a Christian thing to do?” Hontiveros added.

She reminded the other senators that Jesus Christ, whose birth is celebrated at Christmas, is a “true revolutionary and a true champion for equality.”

Among the bill’s top opponents in the chamber are Senate President Vicente Sotto III , also a devout Catholic, and Senators Manny Pacquiao and Joel Villanueva, who are avid evangelical Christians.

Senators who signed the committee report on SB 1934 are Nancy Binay, Imee Marcos, Grace Poe, Leila de Lima, Ralph Recto, Franklin Drilon, and Juan Miguel Zubiri.

The House of Representatives passed its version of the SOGIE Equality Bill during the 17th Congress. The bill was refiled during the 18th Congress, and deliberations are ongoing at the committee level. – Rappler.com

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