Women's suffrage in the Philippines

Women's suffrage was first granted in 1933 through Act No. 4112 but was revoked with the adoption of the 1935 Constitution. Women were only able to practice their right to vote in the 1935 plebiscite which ratified the constitution.

The women's suffrage movement succeeded after Filipina women granted it to themselves in a 1937 national plebiscite.

History

Early efforts

Filipino revolutionaries wrote a constitution for the Philippines during the Malolos Congress from 1898 to 1899. Apolinario Mabini in particular included a provision to grant women right to vote in his draft. However the Malolos Constitution as adopted did not include this provision.

Under the United States administration of the Philippines, the question of women's suffrage for Filipina women continued. Suffragist Pura Villanueva Kalaw credits Cebu Congressman Filemon Sotto as the first politician to file a bill for women's suffrage in 1907 during the First Philippine Assembly. It did not pass and opposition was concerned that it might be detrimental to "family values".

According to historian Encarnacion Alzona it was Melecio Severino in the Third Philippine Assembly who filed the first bill in 1912.

It was upper and middle class Filipina women who led the campaign for women's suffrage in the Philippines. They also had help from American suffragist women and sympathetic American colonial officials including Governor Generals Francis Burton Harrison, and Leonard Wood.

The first bill was passed in the upper house in 1920. But no women's suffrage bill would become law until the 1930s. While Dwight F. Davis and Theodore Roosevelt Jr. has supported greater civil rights for women and have indicated that they would sign a suffrage bill if needed; neither advocated specifically for women's suffrage deferring the issue to the Philippine legislature.

American U.S. House of Representatives member Charles L. Underhill of the Republican Party filed a bill granting women's suffrage in the Philippine islands. Rosa Sevilla de Alvero did not support the bill preferring women's suffrage will be granted via the Philippine legislature and was suspicious of American motives.

Act No. 4112

It was only in 1933, when Act No. 4112, which amended the Administrative Code to grant women's suffrage was passed by both chambers and became law. This came after pressure imposed by Governor General Frank Murphy who refused to sign a law unless the Philippine legislature passes a bill on women's suffrage. Murphy signed the bill on December 7, 1933 and became effective January 1, 1935.

Despite women's suffrage being de jure granted it was never exercised for a regular election under Act No. 4112. Women were still not allowed to vote in the 1934 Philippine Senate elections.

1935 Constitution

In the 1934 Philippine Constitutional Convention, women's suffrage was a contentious topic during the drafting of a new Constitution of the Philippines. The provision for qualified voters read as "male citizens of the Philippines, unless disqualified by law, of 21 years of age and above, able to read and write are eligible for suffrage". The constitution draft was ratified in the 1935 plebiscite effectively repealing de jure women's suffrage granted by Act No. 4112. Around 200,000 women were among those who took part in the plebiscite to ratify the new constitution. The voting behavior of women was explained by suffragist Paz Policarpio-Mendez as the movement prioritizing Filipino nationhood over their sectoral interests.

However a compromise provision was also included in the same 1935 Constitution, it allows for the granting of women's suffrage if at least 300,000 qualified women choose to affirmatively vote in a plebiscite to be held within two years after the adoption of the constitution.

The 1935 Constitution was the charter for the Commonwealth of the Philippines. The 1935 elections was solely participated by men.

1937 suffrage plebiscite

The National Assembly passed Commonwealth Act No. 34 on September 30, 1936 which scheduled the women's suffrage plebiscite mentioned in the 1935 Constitution.

During the 1937 women's suffrage plebiscite held on April 30, 1937, 447,725 women voted "yes" and therefore the women granted themselves suffrage since it satisfies the minimum 300,000 affirmative votes set in the 1935 Constitution. Only 44,307 voted "no".