*Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope, PhD, EdD, DM
There are moments in global news that strike a nerve deeper than mere curiosity — stories that touch the moral core of governance, dignity, and humanity. One such story comes from Pakistan, where a young lawyer named Mahnoor Omer, only twenty-five, dared to confront the silence of her nation’s tax laws. Her case — challenging the so-called “period tax” on sanitary products — is not just a local legal battle. It is a human cry that reverberates across developing nations like ours: a plea for governments to see dignity not as a luxury, but as a right.
A Young Lawyer Against an Old System
Mahnoor Omer’s story, reported by The Guardian, reads like a quiet revolution. She took her government to court for classifying menstrual products as taxable luxuries while items like cattle semen and milk remained tax-exempt. The irony stings — what is more essential to life: a cow’s fertility or a woman’s dignity?
In her petition, Omer argued that sanitary pads, taxed at rates that can raise their price by nearly 40%, are basic health necessities. Yet because of these taxes, millions of women and girls in Pakistan’s rural areas rely on unsafe substitutes — cloths, rags, even newspapers — risking infections, embarrassment, and school absences. According to data cited in the article, only 16.2% of rural women in Pakistan use pads, while one in five schoolgirls misses class during menstruation.
This is not just about tax codes. It’s about social blindness — the inability of a state to recognize that half its population bleeds monthly not by choice, but by biology. Omer’s courage, therefore, is not only legal but moral. It is a rebellion against cultural stigma, bureaucratic apathy, and economic injustice disguised as neutrality.
When Silence Becomes Policy
Reading Omer’s story reminded me of how silence — institutional and cultural — often becomes official policy. When governments refuse to acknowledge the menstrual cycle as a public health issue, they build invisible walls that trap women in cycles of shame and inequality.
Menstruation is not a private inconvenience; it is a biological constant that shapes the lives of billions. When society avoids the conversation, the silence multiplies — in classrooms where girls drop out due to embarrassment, in boardrooms where policies ignore gendered needs, and in parliaments where taxation remains “gender-blind.”
And yet, the term “gender-blind” sounds noble, doesn’t it? It implies equality. But equality without context is merely indifference wearing the mask of fairness. To tax a woman for menstruating is not neutrality — it is neglect institutionalized through numbers.
Taxation and the Politics of Dignity
Taxes, in theory, fund progress. But when applied carelessly, they can also institutionalize prejudice.
In Pakistan, the “period tax” is a textbook case of what economists call “regressive taxation” — a policy that burdens the poor and marginalized disproportionately. In reality, it is not just about money. It is about how the state defines what is essential.
If milk, salt, and livestock semen are tax-exempt because they are deemed necessary for survival and economy, what logic excludes sanitary pads? The answer is not economic. It is cultural. For generations, menstruation has been treated as something to hide — a topic unfit for public debate, let alone fiscal policy.
This is where Mahnoor Omer’s lawsuit becomes transformative. She forces the state to answer an uncomfortable question: What does a nation value more — tradition or dignity?
The Hidden Tax in Philippine Life
Before we Filipinos point fingers, let us ask: are we any better?
In the Philippines, sanitary napkins and tampons are also subject to 12% VAT, just like luxury perfumes or imported chocolates. The government does not classify them as “essential goods,” despite the fact that menstruation is a biological necessity. This means that women — especially poor women — pay more for being women.
This silent inequality is rarely discussed. Politicians talk endlessly about infrastructure, defense, and digitalization, yet few debate the economics of menstruation. This is partly cultural (we avoid taboo topics) and partly institutional (our tax system is designed around neutrality, not equity).
But neutrality is not justice. When the system treats all goods the same, those with specific needs are disadvantaged. Menstruation, pregnancy, and reproductive health are not universal conditions, and policies that ignore them perpetuate hidden discrimination.
When Dignity Becomes a Luxury
I remember my late mother, Juliana Castillo Ortiz Teope, teaching us as children how to stretch every peso to make the family budget work. “Aba, anak,” she would say, “ang mga babae, may buwanang pangangailangan. Isama mo yan sa gastusin ng mga kapatid mong babae, hindi yan luho.”
Her simple wisdom captures what policymakers miss: dignity has a cost, but it should never be treated as a luxury. When sanitary pads are taxed, it is not just an added burden on wallets — it is a symbolic declaration that a woman’s hygiene is negotiable.
In both Pakistan and the Philippines, we see how women are still left to carry the economic burden of their biology. It’s not that men created menstruation — it’s that men created the system that profits from it.
The Intersection of Health, Education, and Equity
Menstrual inequity affects more than dignity. It affects education, health, and national productivity.
When schoolgirls skip classes because of their periods, their learning suffers. When women use unsafe alternatives, their risk of infection rises. When mothers sacrifice household money to buy pads, family nutrition is compromised. Multiply this across millions of households, and you have a silent national crisis — one that erodes development from within.
Health officials may boast about hospital projects and vaccination drives, but if half the population cannot manage their menstruation safely, the country’s health system is incomplete. Menstrual health is public health. Taxing sanitary products is not just fiscal policy — it is a public health failure.
From Period Poverty to Policy Poverty
The deeper issue is not just period poverty — it is policy poverty. Governments often lack gender lenses when designing tax codes, education curricula, or disaster response programs.
Take our own context. After every typhoon, evacuation centers are filled with displaced families. Relief packs contain rice, canned goods, water — but seldom menstrual products. It’s as if women stop menstruating during disasters. The oversight is not malice; it’s blindness — the same blindness that keeps “sanitary pads” off the list of tax-exempt essentials.
This is what Mahnoor Omer is challenging: not just a tax, but a mentality. Her petition, filed in the Lahore High Court, argues that taxing menstruation violates fundamental rights — to equality, to health, and to dignity. It is a constitutional argument grounded in humanity.
Why This Matters to the Philippines
In my years as a public servant and educator, I have seen how systemic issues hide behind technical words. We speak of “tax rationalization” or “revenue enhancement” as if human dignity can be itemized. But the true test of governance is not how much we collect, but how fairly we collect it.
The Philippines today grapples with inflation, budget deficits, and rising public debt. The Department of Finance constantly seeks new tax bases to widen the fiscal net. But as we widen the net, we must not forget who gets caught in it. When a tax system punishes necessity, it ceases to be just.
If Pakistan’s youth can challenge this, so can ours. This is not a feminist issue alone. It is a governance issue, a moral issue, and ultimately a question of national conscience.
Learning from Mahnoor Omer
What makes Omer’s story powerful is not just her age or courage, but her method: strategic litigation.
Instead of ranting on social media, she used the constitution as her weapon. She translated outrage into jurisprudence. That is the essence of civic maturity — the belief that systems can still be redeemed through law, not through anarchy.
Her advocacy group, Mahwari Justice, emerged from the aftermath of Pakistan’s 2022 floods, when thousands of women lacked menstrual supplies in evacuation camps. The movement grew from humanitarian relief into legal activism. From blood to bureaucracy — that is how revolutions begin.
And that is how change must begin in our own country: with educated, disciplined advocacy that marries compassion with policy, emotion with evidence.
Towards Menstrual Equity in the Philippines
What, then, can we do?
- Reclassify menstrual products as essential goods.
- The Department of Finance and Congress must amend the National Internal Revenue Code to exempt sanitary pads, tampons, and menstrual cups from VAT.
- Integrate menstrual health in public education.
- Schools should teach menstrual health openly, dismantling stigma.
- Include menstrual products in disaster relief packs.
- The Department of Social Welfare and Development must ensure menstrual kits are standard in every evacuation pack, just as rice and sardines are.
- Support local innovation.
- Encourage local production of low-cost reusable pads or menstrual cups to support both sustainability and women’s cooperatives.
- Institutionalize gender budgeting.
- Every national and local agency must analyze how its tax, procurement, and project designs affect women differently.
This is not charity. This is justice.
The Morality of Taxes
At its heart, taxation is a moral contract. The people surrender a portion of their earnings in exchange for a dignified, fair, and functioning society. When taxes instead penalize biological realities, that contract is betrayed.
Omer’s lawsuit forces us to ask: Can a state truly claim to value equality if it profits from inequality?
It is the same question we Filipinos must confront each time we accept unfair systems with a shrug.
If the law taxes dignity, then it is not law — it is oppression wrapped in bureaucracy.
A Cry for Conscience
There is something profoundly moving about seeing a young woman, barely out of law school, take her entire government to court for something so ordinary yet so overlooked. She is not fighting for privilege; she is fighting for fairness.
Her voice reminds me of the young Filipinos who, in their own ways, challenge corruption, misinformation, and apathy. They are the new patriots — fighting not with guns, but with reason and empathy.
In the end, what Mahnoor Omer demands is what every nation should guarantee: that no one should pay a price for being human.
My Final Thoughts
When I first read her story, I thought of how small acts of conscience often outlive grand reforms. A young woman in Lahore may never know that her courage inspired policy conversations across seas, but such is the ripple effect of integrity.
In her case, the issue is menstrual equity. In ours, it may be corruption, governance, or federal reform. But the moral thread is the same: when governments lose sight of dignity, citizens must remind them.
Menstrual blood, like the taxes that burden it, tells a story — of systems designed without empathy, of taboos turned into fiscal policy, of voices once silenced now speaking truth to power.
And so, as we in the Philippines continue to pursue a governance founded on integrity and conscience, may we remember that justice is not built only in the halls of Congress or the Supreme Court, but also in the quiet defiance of a 25-year-old woman who dared to say: This is unfair. This must change.
In every policy, in every budget, in every law — let dignity be tax-exempt.
#DJOT
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