WOMEN’S POWER

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26639, 26 January 1952, Page 2

WOMEN’S POWER

EXAMPLE GIVEN TO CONFERENCE An amusing story, dealing with a serious subject, was told by Mrs F. Balboa, of the Philippines, at the final session of the Pan-Pacific conference yesterday. “In 1949,” she said, “we in the Philippines had a very bad election, Voters when they tried to protect their constitutional rights, were intimidated, others were man-handled, and still others were even killed. Abuses were committed by officers of the law—policemen, army men and officials who wanted to stay in power themselves, at all costs. In November, 1951, we held one of the cleanest elections we ever had. How we did it was very simple.” The woman lawyers, of which Mrs Balboa is one, realised that women alone could not cepe with the situation. They realised that “men are not very happy to receive direct orders from the women.” So they worked indirectly on the best organised and the most active men’s organisation in the country, and induced them to start a movement for free elections. The women, the “spark plugs” of the movement worked side by side with the men. To their own surprise, the people rallied behind them and in two weeks the movement became a tremendous force.

The officials, who did not wish a free election, tried to stop the force. They manhandled some of the leaders. “But we went after our Secretary of National Defence,” said Mrs Balboa. •We pleaded with him, we flattered him, we even promised to make him the next president if he would co--2’ us and Protect our men. He did. Theft we worked on our officials, especially on the crooked ones. We set standards for them to follow by praising them in our speeches. We asked them to sneak for free and clean relations. They were human eough to succumb to our tactics and even if their support was superficial, they could not work openly against us, for they had to live iro to the standards we had set for them. Amazingly, when they saw that it was not possible for them to destroy us. they sent us lavish financial contributions. Indeed, we began the crusade without a penny, but a month afterwards we had all the money we needed without having asked for a penny. “That, my friends, is an example of womens power,’’ said Mrs Balboa.