BY REX C. CATUBIG
The girl child comes of age
The girl child that the Presidential Proclamation sought to protect, must be pushing 50 years old now. Proclamation 759 which established the fourth week of March as the Protection and Gender-Fair Treatment of the Girl Child Week was signed on March 6, 1996 by then President Fidel Ramos—safeguarding the welfare of girl children under 18 years old.
So it’s been 30 years since its inception.
But actually, another Presidential Proclamation antedates it. On January 7, 1964, Pres. Diosdado Macapagal issued Proclamation 190 declaring every 4th week of January as Children’s Week “to promote awareness of children’s rights, welfare, and their integral role in society”
But yet an even earlier edict is on record, probably the first: “Proclamation No. 3, series of 1935, issued by President Manuel L. Quezon on November 21, 1935, designated the period from November 23 to 29, 1935, as the First National Girls’ Week in the Philippines”.
If a girl was 8 at the time and lives to this day, she would be an “endangered specie” at 99 years of age.
For all these enacted policies, the topic of children, specifically girl children, has not really caught on in the nation’s consciousness. It seems only now that it has captured public attention owing to the growing concern about child welfare—brought about by the rise in cases of bullying, sex abuse, teen pregnancy, and mental health.
The girl child has not been paid much attention to, because women’s concern has always been top priority—thus eclipsing the girl. Women who have always been considered the weaker sex, inferior to men, have risen from the ranks. Their brave struggles and survival mode amid their challenges, have catapulted them to center stage. They have been transformed as modern day heroines.
Yet to paraphrase and transpose a popular saying: The girl is mother to the woman. What the woman becomes has much to do with her potential as a girl. She can only be as great as the girl child she has evolved and transformed from.
Thus, Mayor Belen Fernandez is spot on in giving focus to the Girl Child Week celebration in conjunction with the Women’s Month. The joint events, held consecutively, underscore the reciprocity of the dual nature of the Woman.
Ironically, while she is the epitome of the Alpha woman, she is not a mother herself. Yet, Mayor Belen is drawn to children and predicates most of her programs and projects to benefit them. In mutual regard, the children gravitate naturally to her.
She always has a soft spot for children, their welfare foremost in her heart. Reports of their abuse greatly disturb her. She takes it as a personal matter and she would be on top of the case—not only to learn of the incident first hand but to offer care and assistance and facilitate intervention for the victim.
Looking back, she led a comfortable life as a child, but somehow, she is blessed with an almost missionary empathy especially towards the oppressed, underprivileged or marginalized children. But it does not stop there: she also believes in boosting the chances and opening doors of opportunities to the gifted and potential leaders, as embodied in her education programs and the MYK student exchange project.
In casual conversations, she fondly recalls that as a child, what money she would earn helping in the family’s grocery business, she would use to buy food that she gave to other children. It was not something that was taught to her. It just occurred naturally, born of the spirit of charity that she imbibed at home.
How she was raised as a young girl, grounded on simple but strong moral values, paved the way to the woman she has become.
Under nurturing circumstances, the girl child that was Belen, rose to become the woman of influence and benevolence that she is as Mayor Belen today.
The girl child has come of age. And so should every girl.