Abstract: It has long been recognized that men and women equally share the burden of productive and reproductive roles (CEDAW 1979; ICPD 1994). However, programmed efforts for gender equity have overwhelmingly focused on protecting and empowering women and their children. Women groups drew strength and justification from these international declarations such that, in many countries, gender work came to be synonymous with women’s rights work. With a feminist perspective fueling these efforts, most of these gender transformative movements proceed from the assumption of the need to first take apart the pervading patriarchy in order to usher in the full enjoyment by women of human rights, freedom of choice, decision, and self-determination.
     Towards this end, the Philippines, like many other countries, enacted many pro-women and, by extension, pro-children laws in the last generation. Consider the following: Republic Act (RA) 6955, RA 7610, RA 7877, RA 8505, RA 8353, RA 8972, RA 9208, and RA 9262. These laws came into effect from 1990 to 2004, proof of growing institutionalization of societal response against structural and economic violence against women and children (VAWC). Proceeding from the assumption of systemic gender inequity, these laws favor women and recognize them as potential victims to be protected, as constituents whose social participation needs to be encouraged, or as citizens whose access to public service ought to be enhanced. The institutional adjustments under these laws therefore have been designed to focus primarily on improving the lived experience of women and children in Philippine society.
     New laws – especially ones that prescribe new ways of thinking, feeling, acting, and interacting – have a way of criminalizing what used