Duterte’s tunnel ‘gender vision’

I realize it’s unfair to compare our impoverished country with developed countries in the West, where women almost equal the number of men in Cabinet or key government positions. Think of the United Kingdom under Prime Minister David Cameron and the United States under President Barack Obama, and Canada under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

However, our new leader seems to think only his childhood pals are fit to help him run the country, which reflects an arrested adolescence in someone who should behave like an adult to gain his people’s respect. He has appointed only two women to his Cabinet—to the education and social welfare posts, but not one of them is our sterling Vice President-elect Leni Robredo despite the fact that she would be ideal for the latter department. But because she is not in the charmed circled or that old boys’ network, she’s looked on as beyond the pale.

Admittedly there are not as many Filipino women who have attained higher educational status, like the feisty Miriam Defensor Santiago and other professionals who have made names for themselves in various male-dominated fields. But because it’s mainly the women who slave abroad to help fill the nation’s coffers, one would think the country’s leader would acknowledge, in one form or another, their contribution to society.

Shame on the President-elect for his tunnel vision which only sees men as capable officials, and views women as peripheral beings fit to be relegated to his outer circle.

—CELESTE  T.  CRUZ, [email protected]