Electoral protest

The position of president of the National Council of Women of the Philippines (NCWP) must be so precious as the presidency of the Philippines so that those interested in it could fight tooth and nail to get it. And precious the NCWP is indeed. It is the coordinating body of about 252 national affiliated and partnered organizations with more than 5,000 councils, and individual members running to about 10 million women. The position is so influential that it can make a president run for Congress or the Senate.

If protests questioning the validity of winning candidates in last year’s presidential elections are still going on – and full speed now with respect to the protest being filed by defeated vice-presidential candidate Loren Legarda in the Supreme Court – one protest is going on in the NCWP, although on different grounds.

The protest was filed by presidential candidate Rosellyn Magsaysay in the Quezon City Regional Trial Court, who claimed in her petition that her election on June 4, 2005, was valid. But this was contested by Myrna Yao, immediate past president of the NCWP, who said that the election was null and void. The Court dismissed Roselyn’s petition as lacking in form and substance. But Rosellyn believes she is the rightful winner.

The trouble began in the afternoon of June 4, 2005, when hundreds of representatives of NCWP member organizations held their General Assembly at the Quezon City Sports Club. The women came from all walks of life, some of them coiffured and wearing nice ternos. Near the end of the meeting they elected 11 officers of the board. After the counting of the votes, some of the officers, including Myrna, left for other appointments.

After Myrna left, seven of the 11 directors elected the officers for the Biennium 2005-2007. Elected were the following: Rosellyn Magsaysay, president; Dr. Amelou B. Reyes, and Atty. Amy Wong, Josefina D. Parilla, Dr. Teresita Quirino and Daisy Plaza as vice-presidents. Elected board secretary was Leonida "Baby" B. Ortiz; treasurer, Rosalind Wee; assistant treasurer, Ofelia Huang; auditor, Julia D. Senga, and press relations officer, Dandy Gomez.

In her letter to Myrna, Rosellyn said the election had followed the traditional practices done in the past in conducting election, and that the officers would be appointing convenors, governors and chairpersons for the different NCWP.

The letter came as a surprise to Myrna, who received it only in the afternoon of June 7, although other officers whom she invited to the June 7 meeting, had received copies earlier. Myrna had called for the meeting to clarify certain things. First, she was still the incumbent president (her term would end on June 30, 2005) and that she was supposed to preside over the meting which she would call.

The election of June 4 showed some flaws, and Myrna sought to correct them in the June 7 "official" meeting. She had informed Rosellyn about the meeting, to which, Myrna said, Rosellyn said she would attend, but to her surprise, that afternoon, she received Rosellyn’s letter saying she was not attending and that the election of June 4 had been attested to by the NCWP Comelec chair, Atty. Aurora Bautista. The other officers had received copies of the letter earlier. Neither did the officers elected on June 4 show up at the Quezon City Sports Club.

"What I actually wanted to tell Rosellyn," said Myrna, "was that Amelou had agreed not to question Rosellyn’s election as president (Amelou had been a strong contender for the position), and that she was just giving in to Roselyn." Myrna said Amelou told her that she had prayed about the whole thing, and the divine answer was for her not to contest Rosellyn’s election anymore.

But since Roselyn, et. al did not show up, Myrna called for the holding of an election, the result of which is as follows: Dr. Amelou B. Reyes, president; Dr. Teresita Quirino, Atty. Amy Wong, Rosellyn Magsaysay, and Leonides Plaza, vice-presidents for at large, NCR, Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, respectively. Dr. Leonida "Baby" Ortiz was elected secretary; Rosalind Wee, treasurer; Margarita "Dandy" Gomez, assistant treasurer; Julie Senga, auditor, and Ofelia Huang, PRO.

In her communication with all the directors, governors, adviser emeritus (former Sen. Helena Z. Benitez), local councils of women, etc., Myrna said the June 4 election was "null and void," since it violated established rules. No official notice had been sent to the NCWP governing body about the election of the officers; there was no quorum of 19 members of the governing body; the election was not presided by the incumbent president, there was no designated presiding officer and the NCWP- appointed Comelec had no jurisdiction over the election of officers.

Written charges and counter-charges between Myrna and Rosellyn have been exchanged, with each one showing con-stitutional bases for their arguments.

On June 29, Rosellyn sent letters to the NCWP affiliates and councils, regional and provincial governors and advisers, etc., that she had been "officially inducted" by the Office of the President, through Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, as the new NCWP president for Biennium 2005-2007, and that she will sit as Commissioner under the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women (NCRFW) representing the NCWP. She also said that she will be the president for 2007, of the ASEAN Confederation of Women’s Organizations, an NGO network composed of 10 Asian countries.

The next day, June 30, Myrna wrote Executive Secretary Ermita, calling his atten-tion to the "misinformation" done by Rosellyn, and that the NCWP was "denoun-cing her induction and appointment since her claim for the presidency was illegal, irregular and unconstitutional based on the Amended NCWP Constitution and By-Laws."

To date, Secretary Ermita has not replied to Myrna’s letter. Obviously, he is caught in an unhappy crossfire.

On July 5, Rosellyn filed a petition seeking a temporary restraining order and a write of preliminary injunction restraining respon-dents Myrna T. Yao, Amelou B. Reyes, Leoni-des Ortiz, Teresita Quirino and Rosalind Wee, from acting as officers.

On July 11, Judge Apolinario D. Bruselas Jr., presiding judge of Branch 93, Regional Trial Court, National Capital Judicial Region, Quezon City, dismissed the complaint, "be-ing insufficient in form and substance."

I met Rosellyn at a dinner after the June 4 election. She said there were two NCWP boards. She also said they were going to take over the NCWP building in Pasay City. True enough, on June 14, her group, including police officers and barangay captains, forcibly opened the doors of the building, where they are holding office.

Myrna had officially turned over the organization on July 1, but she has been thrown into the turmoil. She says it is now the task of the new board, headed by Amelou Reyes, to come to a settlement with Rosel-lyn’s group.

It’s just too bad that something as unsa-vory as this incident has happened to an organization that has been in the forefront of women’s empowerment efforts. The excep-tional Filipino women who have put the NCWP in Philippine historical records, include Francisca Tirona-Benitez, Asuncion A. Perez, Dr. Helena Z. Benitez, Dr. Belen E. Gutierrez, Justice Leonor Ines Luciano, Minerva Laudico, Ester Vibal, and Charing Villar. The younger generation of NCWP stalwarts include Nona S. Ricafort and Myrna T. Yao.

Myrna now sits as chair of the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women. Here she has brought innovative programs, including entrepreneurial projects seeking to empower women especially in the grassroots.

On the NCWP crisis, Myrna says, "I’m trying to put things right here. We must be good examples of women leaders. We women leaders should abide by the rule of law."

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My e-mail: [email protected]