Literato, Shaira Mae M.

August 11, 2018

Section 1-K Legal Research/Writing Tue 7:30-8:30 Sat 6:30-9:30

Philippine Gender Biased Laws and its Rationale and Application

“The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal”- Aristotle. With a
society full of biases, prejudices and unfair treatment, it is a challenge to balance the scale of
justice. There are laws and provision which seem to gender-biased, as alleged by others. Due to
the writer’s curiosity and enthusiasm to learn more about said laws, their application and
rationale, it lead to the creation of this research proposal.

There are some laws that are claimed to be biased on a certain gender. Take for example
Anti-Violence on Women and their Children Act (RA 9262), wherein women can simply file an
affidavit for the issuance of a Temporary Restraining Order (TPO) which mandates the husband
to distance himself from his wife and immediately deprives him from using the conjugal property
and his personal properties. On the other hand, concerns were made because of Art. 333 of the
RPC provides that when a married woman commits adultery, the maximum penalty is 6 years
while Art. 334 states that when a married man commits concubinage, the longest time of
imprisonment is 4 years. The said provisions are deemed unfair to women who suffer a longer
penalty than men.

Moving on, because there are laws considered to be biased, the aims of this paper is to
know the reason behind the creation of said laws, to determine if inequality is really present and
to find out whether it is strictly applied or if there are cases or decisions rendered to make the
applicability of these laws fair or equal for everyone.

As a law student and a citizen whose actions are regulated by laws, the writer believes
that it is significant to know more about the laws, its rationale and application.