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Posts Tagged ‘gay rights’

Rep. Abante during the Anti-Discrimination Bill hearing

Here’s some good news: three candidates from the conservative bloc lost in the senatorial and congressional elections. Bienvenido Abante, an incumbent representative in District 6, Manila City, lost to his rival Sandy Ocampo, a former congresswoman and currently Manila’s deputy mayor. Atty. Jo Imbong, legal counsel of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, ran for senator under the Catholic church-backed Ang Kapatiran Party, is among the bottom-dwellers in the senatorial race. Another pro-life bet, ex-senator Kit Tatad, has been unable to surpass the Top 20 benchmark.

Rep. Abante, as Chair of the House Committee on Human Rights, blocked the passage of a bill penalizing discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders. Last year, Rep. Abante filed a bill criminalizing same-sex marriage and prohibiting co-habitation among between partners of the same sex.

He also opposed the enactment of the RH Bill, a controversial measure that provides access to reproductive health information and contraceptives.

Atty. Imbong, on the other hand, is the CBCP lobbyist that has rabidly campaigned against the RH Bill and Anti-Discrimination Bill in most congressional hearings. A “pro-life” advocate, Atty. Imbong has labeled the above bills as part of the Church-opposed DEATH bills, a cluster of measures promoting divorce, euthanasia, abortion, total reproductive health, and homosexuality (same-sex marriage). Read the rest of this entry »

Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante (Vice Chair of the Committee on Human Rights) filed a bill to criminalize same-sex marriage in the Philippines.

On its face, the bill is both farcical and dangerous. I’ll explain why later, but let’s go through the bill’s salient points first:

• Over-all framework: In line with the constitutional declarations recognizing the sanctity of marriage, it seeks to criminalize the ‘highly immoral, scandalous, and detestable act’ of same-sex marriage.
• It penalizes several acts:

1. Failure to declare one’s true sex or gender for the purpose of securing a marriage license. The penalty is imprisonment from 7 to 12 years and a fine ranging from P50,000 to P100,000.
2. the issuance of marriage license to persons of the same sex or gender, which it seeks to penalize with imprisonment from 6 to 10 years and a fine from P50,000 to P100,000.
3. solemnization of marriage between persons of the same sex or gender (same penalty )
4. cohabitation between persons of the same sex or gender who live together as ‘husband and wife’. This merits the highest penalty: imprisonment from 10 to 15 years and a fine from P100,000 to P150,000.

• Offenders who are in public service shall be dismissed and barred from being employed by the  government. If the offender is legally authorized to solemnize marriage, then his license shall be revoked permanently.
• If the offender is a foreigner, he or she shall be deported immediately.
• If enacted, the bill would require the Local Civil Registrar to ascertain – thru the birth certificate – the true sex or gender of the parties applying for marriage license. Any marriage license issued or any marriage solemnized in violation of the law shall be deemed null and void.

Let’s make a distinction between the intention of the bill and the its substance. The intention is clear: it wants to prohibit commitment ceremonies for LGBT couples. These ceremonies are not legally binding, but for a bigot like Abante such an expression of love must be grating that he feels it should be criminalized. Read the rest of this entry »

Just sharing a coming out article I wrote for the PDI’s Sunday Inquirer Magazine.

First Person: Smashing Closets, Opening Doors

I WAS a little brash when I came out. It happened in 1998, on my last year in UP Diliman, when I was madly in love with another gay man. It was unrequited, but love made it easier to smash the closet: I simply dropped the news to my college friends, then attended my first Pride March, and even managed to blurt out “Oh by the way, I am gay” during my talk for freshman orientation.

Coming out, I was euphoric and had complete disregard for what others would think. That year, I brought my first lover to a family reunion. We were discreet, and thought that nobody noticed. Nobody did, actually, except for one lola who, months later, showed the reunion pictures to my parents and said, “Yan ang boyfriend ng anak n’yo! (That’s your son’s boyfriend!)” Read the rest of this entry »

Monsignor Achilles Dakay of the Archdiocese of Cebu blames ‘gay sex’ as the real culprit behind the so-called Cebu rectal surgery scandal. All I can say to Father Dakay is this: Father, there’s a whole world of gay sex taking place in your parish, perhaps even within your parish church. All you have to do is open your eyes. Where else did those erotic fantasies about priests and sacristans come from?

I wonder, after calling gay sex unnatural and perverse, what does ‘gay sex’ conjure in the mind of Father Dakay? Does the idea of oral sex between men evoke images of Dementors? Does he believe that we are all predisposed to get motel rooms that are, by some evil design, all numbered 666? It would probably surprise our dear Father Dakay to discover that when we have sex on the floor, we don’t do it inside a huge drawing of the pentagram, surrounded by candles. We don’t do a Linda Blair or an Emily Rose when we cum either; when that happens, please be assured, Father Dakay, that I’d be the first to request for an exorcism. Read the rest of this entry »

The most controversial part came from the questions raised by Prof. Gary Dowsett of Latrobe University in Melbourne. To sum up the presentations and discussions during the Rainbow Conversations, a human rights conference held from January 28-31, 2008 in conjunction with the first Asia-Pacific Outgames, Prof. Dowsett asked why words like activism and oppression were conspicuously absent in the language that we use. We resorted, instead, to words like advocacy, which implies working within the system to push for reforms, and homophobia, a psychosocial attitude, a type of fear.

And if we indeed learned anything from the Rainbow Conversations, a gathering of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ) from Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, Singapore, India and the Philippines to talk about the situation of LGBTIQ individuals and communities in the region and the struggle for equality, it is this: we are not facing a mere phobia, we are facing oppression, a systematic exclusion of LGBTIQs and their persecution. And we can’t afford to be mere advocates working within the system, we have to be activists resisting the status quo and imagining a different world. Read the rest of this entry »

Are you from the 6th District of Manila? If you are, then do the Filipino lesbian and gay community a big favor. Don’t vote for Rep. Bienvenido Abante, who’s been trying to block the Anti-Discrimination Bill, in the forthcoming 2007 polls. From October 12 to 13, 2007, during the marathon session for the 2007 budget, Rep. Abante barred the House of Representatives from tackling Anti-Discrimination Bill. (Read more in LAGABLAB’s blog).

Rep. Abante happens to be the Chairperson of the House Committee on Civil, Political and Human Rights. By blocking the Anti-Discrimination Bill and by calling homosexuality “morally reprehensible,” he committed a patent act of discrimination, thus violating the all-embracing principles of human rights. This proves that the current Chair of the House Committee on Human Rights does not know a thing about human rights, or about his mandate. Shame. He certainly does not deserve to be Chair of the House Committee on Human Rights.

Aside from calling homosexuality “morally reprehensible,” he also said that the approval of the Anti-Discrimination Bill is tantamount to extending protection to pedophiles. If I were a legislator, I’d be very careful with making such medieval assertions. If Abante really insists on attaching pedophilia to a particular profession or sexual orientation, then he should look into cases of sexual abuse against minors: most have been committed by heterosexual men against female children. The prevalence is also high within the religious institutions. If we are to follow Rep. Abante’s demented thinking, then it makes sense to keep straight men (or priests) from our children. The point, however, is this: pedophilia is an issue of power, and not of sexual orientation. Some adults abuse children because they think they can get away with it. Funny, but it is actually the Church that promotes this sense of impunity – the CBCP, for instance, just held a national conference on reconciliation and renewal for priests to address the issue of sexual harassment and pedophilia within the Church when what they should have done is turn over to authorities those who commit and perpetrate sexual abuse.

If you are not from Manila City, then help LAGABLAB spread the word about Rep. Abante’s discriminatory acts. Write him, call his office, and tell him that the lesbian and gay community does not take discrimination sitting down. If he wants to bring his proselytizing in Congress, then he should resign from his position (or from Congress) and stay in the pulpit. Democracy is not anti-God or anti-religion, but it certainly has to have secular institutions. He was elected not as Pastor but as a legislator, which requires that in matters of public interests, he must abandon his destructive sectarianism and work for the general welfare.

For me, his name is now synonymous with homophobia. Let’s kick the bigot out of Congress next year.

Here’s what you could do (from LAGABLAB’s blog):

Please send protest letters to Rep. Abante and demand from him equal recognition of the basic human rights and fundamental freedoms of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders. Express your condemnation of his discriminatory actions and of his failure, as the Chairperson of the House Committee on Human Rights and as an elected public official, to respect and recognize the Bill of Rights as enshrined in the Philippine Constitution. Here’s his address:

Office of Rep. Bienvenido Abante, Jr.
Rm. 407, South-wing,
House of Representatives,
Batasan Hills, Quezon City
Phone: 931-5001 local 7248 or 9315691 (telefax)
Email: abante_maynila@yahoo.com

Also, send letters of complaint to House Speaker Jose de Venecia for Rep. Abante’s failure to fulfill his mandate as the Human Rights Chairperson. Tell Speaker de Venecia that as the Chairperson of the House Committee on Human Rights, Rep. Abante is committing a violation of human rights by excluding lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders. Below is Speaker de Venecia’s address:

Office of House Speaker Jose de Venecia
Rm. MB-2, House of Representatives, Quezon City
Phone: 931-5001 local 7446, 9315071 to 9315073
Email: devenecia@pldtdsl.net