Senator Risa Hontiveros on championing women’s rights and a better future for the Philippines

It’s in the blood

Hontiveros says she stumbled into her life in politics “by accident”. Yet, in her recounting of events, it seems that politics did not drop on her lap serendipitously, nor as a spark of one aha moment or unexpected like an accident. Instead, politics crept into her blood more by osmosis, immersion, or by a slow but sustained growth nurtured in a family and a clan that are socially aware, politically informed and involved enough to make a stand.

She vividly remembers her first experience voicing her opposition to the status quo. “I was 12 when the 1978 noise barrage happened, and I joined my family in the backyard to make noise, banging on everything we can get our hands on. I was surprised that the noise was so loud and lasted so long and realised many shared the same oppositionist sentiment.”

Her recollection continues to the summer after her sophomore year in high school when her mother brought her to a Nuclear-Free Philippines Coalition symposium. That same year, the aspiring thespian joined the theatre group Repertory Philippines for the presentation of The Sound of Music where she played the role of Louisa, the third Von Trapp child, after which she was preparing to audition for Liat in South Pacific. “But the NFPC symposium so inspired me that coming back to school for junior high, I organised a group called the Nuclear Disarmament Group. Di na ako tumuloy sa [I did not continue with my] audition. So ayun. Tuloy tuloy na ako [This activisim continued] until college,” she shares.

The events that emboldened her quickly unfolded one after another: the assassination of Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, a civil disobedience campaign, a snap election and the people power revolution. “All that happened when I was in college,” she says. “I was taking Social Sciences, preparing to work in research, writing and teaching. But I stayed an activist all those years.”

After college, she started a promising career in broadcast media, becoming one of the popular faces on television who credibly dish out the news. “But I was full-time as well in organising work with the farm and fisherfolk associations, with the coalition for peace, and others,” she reminds us.

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In the mid-Nineties, she helped form the political party Akbayan, which aims to fight for people’s agenda outside and inside the government. Akbayan was registered in 1988, joined the elections and won one seat in the House for Etta Rosales, the party’s representative. Hontiveros was, of course, always asked to run for Congress, but she begged off twice for family reasons.

“For the 2004 elections, I relented, believing that it’s time to walk my talk,” she says. After serving the House for two terms, she was fielded as a senatorial candidate by the Akbayan-Liberal Party coalition but lost twice. Finally, in 2016, she got elected to the Upper House. “Perhaps the reason I lost twice was that fate and the heavens deemed I would be more useful during the term of Duterte and of Marcos,” she assuages herself.

“I love legislative work,” says the Senator who has no legal background but wishes she had taken up law. Instead, she put together a great legal team and a good research team to discuss the issues she would advocate for or against in the Senate. “But many of the issues we tackle are brought to us by our partners, the stakeholders themselves, the advocates. In practically every bill that we worked on, the concerned sector was the one who brought our attention to the issue,” she informs.

In her political world, there are undoubtedly a lot of frustrations that she has learnt to handle. “I breathe through it, breathing in life and exhaling love,” she reveals the technique she learnt during her short exposure to theatre. “The frustrations that I have to swallow, I think of them as raw materials, ingredients or building blocks to keep working and moving forward. It is important to hold our ground even if there are certain things we cannot win this time. We hold that ground for those who would come after us because, in time, I believe those advocacies will win.”

Hontiveros is very positive and can find common ground even with colleagues who do not share her politics. “As long as there are common advocacies, we’ve crossed the minority/majority line and worked with the majority senators,” she says. She cites the energy issues and economic affairs with Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, children’s problems with Senator Nancy Binay and environmental matters with Senator Loren Legarda. She even has kind words for Senator Robin Padilla: “He’s delivered several privilege speeches where it was clear that he knew what he was talking about. He really studied. And we have worked together on Bangsamoro.

The soldier and the activist

If Hontiveros faces differences in the political arena, she must have faced them at home as well, for she fell in love with and married a military man. “I was in junior year in college when I received a letter from this Philippine Military Academy cadet who wrote that he saw my photo in my high school yearbook. Normally I’d get irritated by the letters I receive, but his was pages long, front and back of handwriting interspersed with doodles and a lot of stories, very conversational that I felt the urge to write back and thank him,” she recalls.

But she lost the letter and did not find it until almost a year later. She wrote back, and that started a regular exchange of correspondence. They became sweethearts, quite a unique union between two opposite mindsets. “But we gelled enough to decide that yes, we can be a family together,” Hontiveros says. In 1990, the activist, Ana Theresia “Risa” Navarro Hontiveros, and the soldier, first lieutenant Francisco “Frank” Baraquel Jr, were wed.

There is nothing she can think of that they hugely disagreed on. “Maybe because he was a writer, he was more broadminded? He also believed in human rights and social justice. He was very curious and open, which is rare among military men. But the few relationships I have heard about, of progressive women and military men, this openness in the latter is needed to make it work,” Hontiveros says. Baraquel died in 2005 from a heart attack, leaving behind four children for Hontiveros to raise as a single mum.

Her children, one boy and three girls, are all grown up now, with only the youngest still in school and one of the girls getting married in June. Though she describes them as all interested in current issues, aware, opinionated and vocal in their lines of work, nobody has yet expressed a desire to enter formal politics. “If one of my children will run for office, I will step back. We do not want to start a dynasty,” she quickly declares, rattling off several influences that may have had an impact on them: their being vast readers, family influence, their school, milieu, generation and perhaps a bit of exposure to her work as she would take them with her to office when they were younger.

Looking beyond her daughter’s wedding, which she is so eagerly anticipating right now, Hontiveros dreams of the day “when we can elect a reformist government in 2028 and participate in a succession plan; and to prepare also to fight for not just one reform administration but two or three so we can institutionalise the reforms that we have been proposing”.

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On women and the future

She would also like to see the opposition “fighting for all the positions up to the presidency” but is non-commital about the possibility of serving in the highest position of the land. “I don’t know yet. I can say right now that, whether it’s someone else or me, there will surely be someone from the opposition. This I am sure of. I will work for this.”

How does she see the lot of women in the future? “Our biggest struggle is still the age-old fight for equality. We have taken many steps forward, but we still have a long way to go until it becomes natural for every person to treat women equally. I agree that we are in a better place because our grandmothers and mothers fought, but we have to keep fighting. Our daughters will have their battles,” she opines.

In this journey, she stresses the importance of women befriending, supporting and helping each other. “We already have such a huge battle outside of our bodies and our own lives. Why should we withhold all our support for each other?” she asks.

Rating the Filipinas in this battle, Hontiveros believes they enjoy greater equality than other women in some countries, a fact they should be proud of “because they fought for that”. However, she adds that they can also be inspired by women in other countries who are ahead and learn from and support women who are still behind in this fight for equality.

What about theatre? Is she still open to giving it a try? “That is the plan,” she affirms. “That’s my career path. When I am no longer in politics, I will return to theatre, even lola [grandma] and mummy roles. I was just derailed for decades by my other great love, politics. I have both influences in my family, theatre and politics.”

Her grandfather, Jose Hontiveros, was a former senator, governor and Supreme Court associate justice. Her aunt, Daisy Hontiveros Avellana, was an actress and theatre director. Curiously, she also has an uncle, Fr Ed Hontiveros, SJ, a composer. Will Fr Honti’s influence lead her to a religious life?

As open as Hontiveros is, anything is possible, including love. What will not change, nor waver, are her beliefs because they are already running through her veins and ingrained in her gene pool and thus will always be there wherever fate takes her.

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