BAGUIO CITY – Some two hundred women leaders from the city’s barangays and civil society organizations recently attended the Women’s Summit held at the New Town hotel Thursday.
The summit is part of the ongoing activities for this year’s Women’s month celebration organized by the city council and the City Social Welfare and Development Office (CSWDO)
The participants were provided insights on women on Voluntarism, the city’s Gender and Development (GAD) agenda, Women in governance and the ongoing implementation of the circular economy by the local government.
Antonette A. Anaban, regional director of the Cordillera office of the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD-CAR), rallied the women leaders to embrace voluntarism as part of their way of life and for them to inculcate in the children the importance of volunteering.
She added that being actively involved in volunteer work is a sign of being empowered.
Dr. Rosella Camte-Bahni, GAD specialist of the City Planning and Development Office, discussed the city’s GAD agenda where the GAD Code is now undergoing amendment to conform with the current trend of the times.
The city’s GAD Code was passed in 2004 and amended in 2021 but there is still a need to introduce the necessary amendments that will allow its implementation up to the grassroots level.
For her part, City Budget Officer lawyer Leticia O. Clemente said that only two percent of the workforce of the local government were females more than three decades ago when she entered public service.
However, she noted that with the persistence of the females in the bureaucracy, a significant gain was realized when women started occupying key positions in the city up to date where there are already many females occupying key positions in the city.
On the other hand, Councilor Betty Lourdes F. Tabanda, Chairperson of the Committee on Health and Sanitization, Ecology and Environmental Protection, rallied the women leaders to be actively involved in the implementation of the circular economy in their respective barangays to help in significantly reducing the volume of waste generated and the huge expenses being incurred by the city in the hauling of residual waste to the nearest engineered sanitary landfill.
She emphasized that the active participation of women in various efforts to address the city’s solid waste concerns will be vital in addressing the said problem in the future.
Councilor Elmer Datuin, Chairman of the City Council Committee on Social Services, Women and Urban Poor, lauded the women leaders for their commitment in joining the efforts to help in finding solutions to the numerous problems caused by urbanization and make the city a good place to study, work, live and do business. By Dexter A. See
