MANILA (UCAN): The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines [CBCP] launched its Office on Women at its headquarters with a Mass on May 22, to create a network of women in dioceses nationwide, aiming to ensure greater participation of women in the Church.
Bishop Isabelo Abarquez, who heads the office, said they established the network because many dioceses lack women’s offices or have limited coordination with the conference.
Of the 84 dioceses in the country, only 14 have fully or partially established women’s offices, according to data on May 25.
In other dioceses, similar ministries “are newly set up as separate offices or are temporarily included in other ministries also dealing with women,” an official of the office said.
Women “have always carried a unique and indispensable role” in the Church and society, Bishop Abarquez said during the Mass noting that they face “painful realities” such as poverty, violence, and discrimination, he added.
“The future of our evangelisation requires the full participation of women,” the 69-year-old bishop emphasised.
The Philippines is the highest-ranked Asian country in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index 2025. It is ranked 20 globally, well ahead of Singapore [47], Mongolia [65], and Thailand [66].
Still, the status of Catholic women in the country “is a mixed bag,” Stephanie Ann Puen, a theologian from the Ateneo de Manila University, said on May 25.
“In some pockets, women are treated quite well,” and “it’s just really, really bad” in others, she elaborated, adding that many cases of discrimination are “often very subtle” and “so ingrained,” she said.
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She said some spaces in the Church are often perceived as “just spaces for women,” and those spaces are often “seen as lower than other spaces in the Church,” she added.
Puen said building the diocesan network for women “is a good approach.”
However, the bigger questions concerned the kinds of women’s roles the network would support and the resources allocated for the initiative.
Rafaela David, president of the activist group Akbayan, which advocates for women’s empowerment, welcomed the initiative, saying it recognises “women’s crucial contribution to the Church.”
David noted, “It also sends a strong message to all Filipinos that women’s voices must be heard and valued in all spaces and that empowering women is integral to the Church’s mission of liberation.”
