#HERstory: Women's Suffrage in the Philippines

Did you know that the first-ever “Miss Philippines” has something to do with women’s suffrage? In honor of the women in our history and to commemorate Women's Month, we've unraveled how the Women in the Philippines won the right to vote.

Kalaw was crowned "Queen of the Orient" in 1908, during the first ever Manila Carnival. This title that would later become "Miss Philippines" in 1926—making her the first one!

President Quezon signing the Women’s Suffrage Bill

Purificacion Garcia Villanueva was the daughter of Emilio Villanueva and Emilia Garcia, who was born in Iloilo City. Her mother was born in the Spanish city of Palencia. Pura Villanueva, then 22, became the first Miss Philippines and was overwhelmingly voted "Queen of the Manila Carnival" in 1908. Pura was half-Filipina; she was already a rising writer/columnist for Iloilo's weekly journal El Tiempo and a leading feminist of her day when she traveled to Manila to represent Region VI. In fact, she founded the Feminista Ilongga Organization in 1906, with the intention of emphasizing women's suffrage. This was also the Philippines' first completely female-led suffragette movement. Women did not gain the right to vote until 1937, mainly to a nationwide movement led by Kalaw and her contemporaries.

In 1910, she married Teodoro M. Kalaw of Lipa, Batangas, and went on to become a well-known journalist and editor for El Tiempo, a renowned Western Visayas publication. Kalaw published on a wide range of topics with a concentration on women's rights. In 1951, she was bestowed a medal by then-President Elpidio Quirino for her lifetime advocacy for women's rights in the country. Kalaw died a few years later, in 1954, of a heart attack, leaving behind a legacy worthy of imitation for Ilonggas and Filipinas throughout.