Women in Pre-Colonial Philippines: Caquenga and Luysa

Sistory Untold

From their earliest creation stories to the 2017 WEF Global Gender Gap report, women in the Philippines consistently experience more equality with men than in many other nations. But what did that look like when Spanish colonizers arrived and observed that in the Philippines “the best man is a woman?” The answer to that question can be answered through the story of two women: Luysa Balinan and her rival Caquenga. Both women risked their lives for their religious beliefs and fought for a version of the Philippines that they thought was morally right, but they stood on different sides of the argument. Listen to find out whom history has made the victor.