Akbayan Senator Risa Hontiveros, chair of the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality, presides over a Senate hearing on three bills she dubbed “Tres Marias”, which aim to boost existing laws that protect women, particularly from sexual harassment. , Hontiveros said the measures—the Anti-Rape Act, the Anti-Sexual Harassment Bill, and the Gender-Based Electronic Violence seek to strengthen the existing anti-rape law and criminalize gender-based electronic violence and peer-to-peer sexual harassment. “There is an urgent need to institute measures to combat the prevalence of the rape culture in our society which leads to physical sexual assault and other forms of violence against our women and children,” Hontiveros stressed. (PRIB Photo by Joseph Vidal)