A great disservice to women's causes

The Philippines observed International Women's Day last Wednesday with the real issues affecting women either getting sidetracked or completely ignored. And who were the culprits? Why, the supposed advocates for women's causes themselves, that's who.

If you go through all the papers that carried stories or photos related to the observance the following day, you will notice that most, if not all, pertained to street demonstrations and the arrest of leftist party-list Rep. Risa Hontiveros Baraquel.

If there were any other stories or photos dealing with other activities that may have tackled more urgent and pressing women's issues on a more sober and sensible plane, they were tucked away deep in the inside pages, overshadowed by the more political angst in the streets.

What obliterated coverage of the real issues were photos of angry leftist women who sold out their dignity by allowing even their faces to become billboards for hand-painted political slogans, screaming for the head of another woman, the president of the republic.

Baraquel, who spends more time in the streets defiling the Philippine flag by wearing it as a dress than doing the things for which she was given an electoral mandate, was arrested for demonstrating without a permit, something that she had been actually longing for to happen.

These women, as well as their male counterparts, have long been taunting the authorities to arrest them, having assumed the mistaken notion than the rest of the nation would view their arrest as a sign of state oppression and accord them the hero status that they so crave.

Well, the clearest indication of what the rest of the nation thinks of them can be seen in the manner in which the newspapers treated the stories and photos of the street protests and the arrest of Baraquel.

While most of the stories and photos landed on page one, almost all of the newspapers refused to give the story banner treatment. Some even assigned only a one-column space for the arrest, a testament to the significance of Baraquel and her fate to the national consciousness.

Maybe it is time that Baraquel and her ilk realize that the only way to really address women's issues is to do something concrete about them, not take to the streets espousing political issues and trying to instigate a riot.

Many of the pressing issues that concern Filipino women need long-term solutions that require persistent, dedicated and determined hard work. Baraquel, in fact, is blessed with the rare opportunity to take steps in that direction, being a member of Congress.

Yet Baraquel prefers to take cause in the streets where no cause is really addressed but for the level of decibels expended. No open and ostentatious display of lip service is more pronounced than this.

And while Baraquel and company paid lip service to women's causes, those who truly cared about issues affecting Filipino women and who silently undertook activities that had real chances of making a difference were deprived of their due acknowledgement.

The media are partly to blame for that, though, their propensity being to be drawn to that which is sensational and would therefore sell. But let us face it. Duly acknowledged or not, those who are truly doing something have been sideswept by the angst in the streets.

Baraquel and her ilk are but a drop in the sea of women in this country. No matter how full they fill their lungs with the hot air of political hatred, this will never suffice to breathe life into the real causes of women.

The mere fact of their having the genitalia to prove their gender does not in any way qualify them to speak for women's causes if all they do is scream political slogans, or act on their behalf if all they do is cause trouble in the streets.