Today saw the swearing in of the new commissioners that make up the National Women's Commission, including the new president, Christina Romero.
The former president, Thea Garcia Ramirez kicked off the NWC's work by signing an MOU with the Special Envoy. We caught up with her today and learned more.
Thea Garcia Ramirez, Minister of Human Dev, Families, Gender Affairs:
"We have a new president or a new chair. I was the previous president. So it's bittersweet. I'm now on the other side, but that just means that we'll be working better together as I know the work of the commission. The difference is this time, we have a clear mandate and legal framework. As you know, the National Women's Commission Act was passed in 2024. And so that sets up exactly what the framework is. The work of the Commission is well defined now. And now we're ready to work together closely with the Ministry and of course, with the office of the Special envoy. We also took this opportunity as well to sign a memorandum of understanding with the office of the Special Envoy on how we're going to partner, work together and collaborate so that the three entities are now going to be able to have a clear mandate how we're going to proceed, moving forward together and moving what we call the the social agenda, the gender policy and all of these great documents that we have that we need to start to really press on and get a move on."
"we have, for example, the ministry, is asking for the families bill to be re-socialized and consultations should be moving forward. So that's one of the first things that they will be helping on as when we have the National Commission for Families and Children will also be collaborating. And because the families Bill has a lot of new legislation in there for older persons, then the Council of Aging will also come in. So we will have a multi agency, approach to consultations. And I'm sure that this time around everybody will have an opportunity to give feedback."
