Senator Risa Hontiveros: Woman of Substance
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Senator Risa during a Senate hearing.
In high school at St. Scholastica’s College, where the students are challenged to think critically, Risa formed a nuclear disarmament group with her classmates. In college at the Ateneo de Manila University, she joined the student government and was elected Internal Vice President of the Sanggunian.
She never looked back. It was inevitable that the theater ingenue would enter the bigger stage of national politics. Musical theater’s loss was the nation’s gain. Forty years after her introduction to activism, Risa is still on center stage -- an earnest, confident, and compassionate legislator who carries the concerns of women, children, and their families in her heart and work.
Peace Advocate
I met Risa after 1986, after the EDSA revolution. She was fresh of face and an eager advocate of the same causes I espoused – genuine agrarian reform and peace talks with the communist and Moro underground that we wanted the Cory government to pursue. The rebel groups had flourished during the martial law years, and we felt it was the right time to bring them back into the mainstream through a genuine peace process.
We were part of the Coalition for Peace along with the late Gaston Ortigas, Randy and the late Karina David, Ed Garcia, Ging Deles, Karen Tañada, the late Dinky Soliman, and other peace advocates. We met and strategized and mounted activities that would promote the end of armed conflict, including genuine agrarian reform. We supported the people-initiated peace zones in the Cordillera and Mindanao and held peace conferences and peace marches. We even established a peace tent in the Batasang Pambansa compound to bring the peace agenda closer to the lawmakers. It was a heady time. People Power made so many things seem possible.
What I was not aware of at the time was something that I initially thought was implausible -- that Risa would fall in love with a PMA cadet. It was the post- martial law period, and President Cory Aquino, in a bid to bridge the gap between the military and civilians, called for a dialogue between college students in Manila and future officers from the Philippine Military Academy. And that was where our young peace warrior met the very likeable Cadet Frank Baraquel. Their wedding in 1990 was the union of two unlikely best friends – a peace activist and a captain in the Philippine Constabulary – held at the Santa Maria della Strada parish church where I found myself in the company of PC officers and peace advocates as co-wedding sponsors.
Single Mother
Frank and Risa had four children in 12 years – a boy, Kiko, and three girls, Issa, Ianna, and Sinta. But in 2005, after 15 good years of marriage marked by mutual respect for each other’s career choices, Frank, who suffered from severe asthma, succumbed to a heart attack. The youngest, Sinta, was only three years old. At the funeral, Risa was a picture of courage, walking erect, dry-eyed, and determined, carrying Sinta in her arms, her other children in tow.
Senator Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel and her four children.
Risa, a police officer’s wife, was already a member of Congress at the time, as party list representative of Akbayan, a progressive democratic socialist political party established in 1998, of which she was a founding member. She sat as Akbayan representative in the 13th Congress (2004-2007) and again in the 14th Congress (2007-2010).
It was a difficult time for Risa, a single mother, but she soldiered on, juggling her schedule between the demands of motherhood and her job as a legislator. There was a house to run, the kids’ homework to be done, parent-teachers’ meetings, childhood illnesses, but with the help of her comrades in Akbayan who adjusted her schedule so she could attend to her children’s needs and events, she persisted, sighing later when her kids were grown, how thankful she is that they turned out to be good people.
She wrote in an article for the Inquirer in 2020, “I used to tell myself, political tasks can be delegated; but only I can parent my children. Being a mother and a congresswoman were jobs I had to perform optimally at the same time. I could not give one up for the other. Efficiency and organization became my best assets.”
Legislative Record
It was in Congress where she championed in 2009, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms, known also as CARPER, (Republic Act 9700), which extended the deadline for the distribution of agricultural lands to farmers for another five years; the Cheaper Medicines Law (R.A. 9502 of 2008), which was intended to achieve universally accessible and cheaper quality medicines through an effective competition policy in the pharmaceutical sector; and the Reproductive Health Bill (which passed in 2012 as the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act or the RH Law), a groundbreaking law that guarantees universal and free access to nearly all modern contraceptives for all citizens, including impoverished communities, at government health centers.
Risa was no longer in Congress when the RH Bill was signed into law, but her advocacy in women‘s reproductive health haunted her run for the Senate in 2013 when several Catholic dioceses publicly denounced her and other senatorial candidates who supported the RH Bill, labeling them “Team Patay.” Risa lost that election.
It was her second loss for a Senate seat, but Risa persisted, and three’s the charm. On her third try in 2016, she placed eighth out of 12. She hit the ground running. As chair of the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality, Risa drew up a priority list of urgent legislation to protect, defend, empower, and enable women, who make up one of the most vulnerable sectors of our society.
She observed that it was women OFWs, domestic workers, health workers, social workers, teachers, clerks, and of other occupations “who make our country turn,” but they are mostly unseen, unheard, unnamed, and underpaid. As a woman senator, Risa made it her responsibility to ease the multiple burdens that women carry.
She wrote in a piece for Rappler: “We must use our unique experiences as women to uplift other women; not be passive conduits for the persisting patriarchy. We women have a unique, particular point of view that we can inject in our work. We have a heightened sense of beauty even in the midst of effort, an intellect rounded out by emotional quotient, and empathy that values compassion even in the heat of conflict – not because these are distinct to us women or because our male counterparts cannot contribute them, but because of the sex-disaggregated way we raise our daughters and sons and socialize our women and men.”
“It has taken the passion, persistence, and resolve, and I might add, the gentle but firm charm of Risa Hontiveros to get the Senate to give high priority to the crucial concerns of women and their families.”
Unyielding Advocacy
Her legislative output is proof of her unyielding advocacy: the Safe Spaces Act, also known as the Bawal Bastos Law that protects women who are alone in public places from intimidation, harassment, catcalling, or stalking. Risa calls this law “a game-changer” which, “if implemented properly, will promote positive policy, behavioral and cultural changes to end gender-based harassment in public spaces."
In 2019, she passed the Extended Maternity Leave Law that extends paid maternity leave from only 60 days to 105 days, to give mothers enough time to rest after childbirth and bond with her newborn before she has to go back to work. This law places the Philippines at par with international standards for both maternal and infant care.
She introduced a bill to help families of solo parents, of which she has firsthand experience. Her proposed Expanded Solo Parents Welfare Act envisions benefits to solo parents, such as a monthly P1,000 cash subsidy, automatic Philhealth coverage, discounts on tuition fees, goods and services, and apprenticeship programs in TESDA for indigent parents and their families, among others.
For the protection of children from sexual exploitation, she co-authored a law raising the age of statutory rape to below 16 years old, and the Girls Not Brides Law (RA 11596), which declares child marriage as illegal. Another vital legislation by Risa is the Domestic Administration Adoption Act, which makes it easier for qualified couples to legally adopt children.
A landmark law Risa has championed is the Philippine Mental Health Law, the first true national policy on mental health in the country’s history, which was enacted on 21 June 2018. The law provides for a rights-based approach to mental health which requires the establishment of psychiatric, psychosocial, and neurological services in all hospitals, and basic mental health services in community settings. It affirms the rights of mental patients to rehabilitation and information on their psychological and clinical assessments, to participate in their own treatment plan, freedom from discrimination and inhumane and degrading treatment, and the right to confidentiality.
Other laws she has worked on during her first term are: 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 PWDs; the First 1,000 Days Law or the Kalusugan at Nutrisyon ng mga Nanay Law; the Speech Pathology Law; and the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program Law.
Investigations in Aid of Legislation
Risa has also been active in exposing corrupt practices in government. Last year, she exposed a racket by corrupt immigration officials who were victimizing Filipino women by sending them to Syria to be domestics or prostitutes.
Earlier, she uncovered what was known as the “Pastillas Scam,” a clandestine operation in the Bureau of Immigration that facilitated the entry of Chinese nationals who worked for Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGO) in exchange for bribes rolled up to look like pastillas (a milk candy).
Last year, at the height of the pandemic, Risa exposed questionable transactions -- unveiled by the Commission on Audit -- by the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM) and a supplier, Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corporation, that used funds of the Department of Health for the purchase of overpriced PPEs, face masks, face shields, and other anti-Covid paraphernalia. The Senate probe uncovered a web of relationships between Pharmally officials and persons close to President Rodrigo Duterte, as well as unpaid taxes on their undeclared incomes.
Unfinished business
It has taken the passion, persistence, and resolve, and I might add, the gentle but firm charm of Risa Hontiveros to get the Senate to give high priority to the crucial concerns of women and their families. She has definitely made her mark in legislation during her six years in Congress and six years in the Senate, but she is not about to rest on her laurels.
As her six-year Senate term ends, she is campaigning for re-election. There’s a lot of unfinished business on her plate: the SOGIE Equality Bill that protects LGBTQ members from discrimination; the Divorce Bill; the Anti-Hospital Detention Bill; the Universal Social Pension for Senior Citizens Bill; the Prevention of Teenage Pregnancy Bill; and the On-Site In-City Near City Resettlement Program Bill.
Senator Risa Hontiveros campaigning in Cavite, March 2022.
She is also pushing for the creation of a Department of Ocean, Fisheries and Aquatic Resources; a Magna Carta for Seafarers; the Bibong Barangay Health Workers Bill, which provides a fixed allowance and statutory benefits for all barangay health workers; 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.
Risa is one of three women of substance who are currently campaigning mightily for re-election in May 2022: Vice President Leni Robredo, the only woman candidate for president who has inspired millions of volunteer campaigners with her earnest and exemplary leadership; Senator Leila de Lima who, in spite of being unjustly detained for five years, now has an impressive legislative record; and herself, Senator Risa Hontiveros, the foremost advocate of women’s rights and welfare, who lights up the stage when she smiles and raises her arms in victory. On the campaign trail, Risa, Leila, and Leni make a formidable and refreshing presence with their own stories to tell.
Simple and natural – Risa in blue jeans and white shirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail; VP Leni in a pink top and black pants, flipping her shoulder length hair as she speaks; and Leila as a cardboard standee, one arm raised high, her open palm depicting the number five (as in de Lima) – they are women of substance who have given much to the country, speaking plainly and earnestly about what they have done and what they still intend to do.
I listen to these women and I believe that they are exactly the kind of leaders that our country needs.
As Risa wrote in Rappler in 2021: “We must always remember that our experience as women matters, so let us use it well. Our stories matter, so let us keep retelling them. We must all actively push for the women’s agenda. We need more active participants for our country, for our democracy to survive. We especially need female participants for our democracy to thrive. The present conditions of our time call for more women, especially those of privilege and in power, to band together for the greater good. Babae at bayanihan. Pilipina para sa kapwa Pilipina (Women and Collective Action. Filipinas for Fellow Filipinas).”
(This article was written using the writer’s personal knowledge and published articles by and about Senator Hontiveros)
Paulynn Sicam is a retired journalist, sometime columnist (for the Philippine Star), and freelance book editor in Manila.
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