Baybay City's daughter among world's top 100 pro-women advocates

ORMOC CITY, Philippines — Representative Janette Loreto Garin, who was born in Baybay City but currently serving as congresswoman for Iloilo province where her husband comes from, has brought honor to her family and home after being named among the World's Top 100 Inspiring People Delivering for Girls and Women.

The list also included another Filipina, Sr. Mary John Mananzan, OSB, TV host Oprah Winfrey, Melinda Gates, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Queen Rania of Jordan.

The list was put together by Women Deliver, a global advocacy organization calling for action against maternal death.

Garin, deputy majority leader of the House of Representatives, was cited for advocating reproductive rights.

A medical doctor by profession, she is a principal author of the Reproductive Health Bill, a controversial bill being opposed by the powerful Catholic Church in the country.

Garin has seen her fair share of criticisms and brickbats against her bill, but she stood firm to her beliefs and advocacy on reproductive health and allowing couples to choose between artificial and natural family planning methods, with government taking an active role in giving universal access to birth control methods down to the barrios. 

Garin is not new to politics. Coming from the very political Veloso-Loreto and Petilla clans in Leyte, she entered it at a young age. She became SK Federation president of Leyte province and as such an ex-officio PB Member.

Women Deliver was launched during a groundbreaking conference in 2007. Its objectives are to reduce maternal mortality and achieve universal access to reproductive health all over the world.

The initiative builds on commitments, partnerships, and networks mobilized at the conference, fighting to end the deluge of preventable deaths that kill approximately 350,000 girls and women from pregnancy-related causes every year.   – THE FREEMAN