Act on Women's Equality in Development

Section 2 directs the State to ensure the fundamental equality before the law of women and men.
Section 2 requires the State to provide women rights and opportunities equal to that of men.
Section 2 mandates a gender-equality approach using official foreign development assistance and government regulation reform.
Section 2 requires government departments to review and revise regulations, circulars, issuances, and procedures to remove gender bias.

Section 3 assigns the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) primary responsibility for ensuring women’s participation as recipients in foreign aid, grants and loans.
Section 3 requires NEDA to determine and recommend the amount to be allocated for development activities involving women.

Section 4 requires NEDA, with assistance of the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women, to ensure women’s integration in national development.
Section 4 covers government departments and their agencies and instrumentalities that directly or indirectly affect women’s participation in national development.
Section 4 requires rural/countryside development programs to provide income and employment opportunities to women to prevent heavy migration from rural to urban or foreign countries.
Section 4 requires an assessment of how programs/projects integrate women in development and their impact, including implications for enhancing women’s self-reliance and improving income.

Section 4 requires active participation of women and women’s organizations in planning, design, implementation, management, monitoring, and evaluation of development programs and projects.
Section 4 requires collecting sex-disaggregated data and including that data in the program/project paper, proposal, or strategy.
Section 4 requires programs/projects to be designed so that the percentage of women receiving assistance is approximately proportionate to either (a) women’s traditional participation in targeted activities or (b) women’s proportion of the population, whichever is higher.
Section 4 requires that if proportionality is not achieved, the program/project paper, proposal, or strategy must state:
- the obstacles to achieving the goal;
- the steps being taken to overcome those obstacles; and
- if no steps are being taken, why no steps are being taken.

Section 5 establishes that women of legal age, regardless of civil status, have capacity to act and enter into contracts equal to that of men under similar circumstances.
Section 5 provides that in contractual situations where married men have capacity to act, married women have equal rights.
Section 5 requires equal conditions for:
- women’s capacity to borrow and obtain loans and execute security and credit arrangements;
- women’s access to government and private sector programs granting agricultural credit, loans and nonmaterial resources, with equal treatment in agrarian reform and land resettlement programs.
Section 5 grants women equal rights to act as incorporators and to enter into insurance contracts.
Section 5 grants married women rights equal to married men in applying for passports, secure visas and other travel documents, without needing to secure their spouses’ consent.

Section 6 grants women equal access to membership in all social, civic and recreational clubs, committees, associations, and similar organizations devoted to public purpose.
Section 6 provides that women are entitled to the same rights and privileges accorded to their spouses if they belong to the same organization.

Section 7 mandates equal opportunities for women in all military or similar schools of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police, consistent with the needs of the services.
Section 7 provides equal opportunities for appointment, admission, training, graduation and commissioning.
Section 7 requires equal access not later than the fourth academic year following the approval of the Act.
Section 7 requires compliance with the standards required for men, except for minimum essential adjustments required by physiological differences between sexes.

Section 8 allows married persons who devote full time to managing the household and family affairs to enroll in voluntary Pag-IBIG, GSIS, or SSS coverage upon the working spouse’s consent.
Section 8 limits coverage to one-half (1/2) of the salary and compensation of the working spouse.
Section 8 provides that contributions due are deducted from the salary of the working spouse.
Section 8 requires the GSIS or SSS, as the case may be, to issue rules and regulations necessary to implement this section effectively.

Section 9 requires NEDA, in consultation with concerned government agencies, to issue rules and regulations for effective implementation of Sections 2, 3 and 4.
Section 9 sets a deadline of six (6) months from effectivity for issuing these implementing rules.
Section 10 requires every government department, including its agencies and instrumentalities, to submit a compliance report to Congress.
Section 10 requires the first report within six (6) months from effectivity, and requires reporting every six (6) months thereafter.

Section 11 provides that if any section or provision is declared unconstitutional or invalid, the unaffected provisions remain in full force and effect.
Section 12 repeals provisions of:
- Republic Act No. 386, the Civil Code of the Philippines, as amended; and
- Executive Order No. 209, the Family Code of the Philippines; and
- all laws, decrees, executive orders, proclamations, rules and regulations, or parts thereof, that are inconsistent with the Act.
Section 13 makes the Act’s women’s rights provisions effective upon publication in the Official Gazette or in two (2) newspapers of general circulation.