AMAZING GRACE

In thoroughly exploring their passions, honing their skills, and continuing to be beacons who inspire a whole nation, these five women show a life well-crafted and welllived. RIA DE BORJA shares their stories.

ACCORDING TO THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM REPORT GLOBAL GENDER GAP REPORT FROM JUNE, the Philippines, New Zealand, and Australia have the highest gender parity among East Asian and Pacific countries. If young Filipinas today have an edge, no doubt that this was carved out by the many trailblazing women who came before. Heroines in their own right, these revolutionaries are educators, scholars, writers, and artists.

Here, we pay tribute to five pioneering women who have paved the way and showed us how to live a meaningful life. They are our national treasures. Literally, too, as Alice Reyes is a National Artist for Dance and Dolores Ramirez is a National Scientist.

These women traversed challenging waters and anchored themselves on the world stage. They achieved tremendous milestones over 250 years combined, in the fields of Culture, the Arts, and the Sciences, helping shape Philippine society and influencing future leaders for generations to come. 

marian PASTOR ROCES
CRITICAL THINKER, CURATOR, AUTHOR, AND HISTORIAN

YOU CAN’T PUT MARIAN PASTOR ROCES IN A BOX. She’ll likely speak her way out of it. She wears several hats: curator, critical thinker, policy analyst. With a clear and expressive voice, she tackles every conversation with analytic prose, requiring attention. You realize she isn’t playing devil’s advocate, rather she is thinking critically about the questions pitched to her.