IS THERE a distinction between men and women when it comes to serving in public office?
Multi-year data gathered by the Sandiganbayan under its Gender and Development (GAD) program showed there is a marked difference in the number of male government officials who get indicted for criminal offenses compared to their female counterparts.
From January 2017 to October 2022, a period covering 51 months, there were 2,371 individuals charged for various crimes before the anti-graft court.
Of the said number, only 820 were women representing 34.58 percent of the total.
Males on the other hand accounted for 65.42 percent or 1,551 — almost twice the number of women who faced charges in court.
The numbers were made public on the Sandiganbayan’s official website under the heading Sex-Disaggregated Data on Criminal Cases Filed in Sadiganbayan.
In all those six years, men always outnumbered women.
Out of the 51 months covered, it was only in February 2020 and in February and May 2022 that there were more women defendants than men.
According to the website of the Civil Service Commission (CSC), women comprise 55 percent of the civil service.
But based on the figures of the Philippine Commission on Women (PCW), the highest percentage of women elected to public office never got past 21.44, which was achieved during the 2016 elections.
