LGBT community to show force for SOGIESC Equality Bill

AS PRIDE 2024 comes to light, the LGBT community in the country promises to show force against the discriminators who opposed against the bill. 

June is the month of Pride on where we commemorate, honor, and recognize the impact that lesbians, gay, and bisexual individuals had in the history. 

This is the time on where the community along allies to get together to celebrate the LGBTQIA+ people for their contributions and as for 2024’s Pride month in the Philippines–they are to come together to show force to pass the SOGIESC Equality bill in the country. 

In 2022, The Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations, and Gender Equality filed a consolidated SOGIESC Equality bill after commitee hearings. Bill versions at the House has been transmitted to its Commitee on Appropriations. 

PANAY national convenor Vince Liban told ABS-CBN news that the community along as well as their contributions to the nation “will be one voice calling for a national legislation that will protect LGBTQIA+ Filipinos in schools, workplaces, and in the streets.”

“We’re happy to see more and more Filipino families stand up for their LGBTQIA+ children, relatives, and loved ones. Amidst the many faces of discrimination and violence against the LGBTIQ+ community, we remain hopeful that more allies and rainbow families will show up and share their love and support at the Pride March and for the SOGIE Equality Bill.” Liban said.  

Each year, Pride Month close with Pride March. For the upcoming march on June 30, they are to show force as well as a love letter to the congress as they seek lawmakers to embrace equality and to pass the SOGIE bill. 

One of the people to oppose the bill is Senator Joel Villianueva and CIBAC party-list Rep. Eddie Villanueva. According to them, they worry that the passage of the bill would create a special treatment for the members of the LGBTQIA+ and will threaten the social order. 

They instead suggested an alternative bill–one that is deemed to be more holistic and will benefit all marginized group. 

Meanwhile Bahaghari chairperson Reyna Valmores stated that the LGBTQIA+ community will continue to assert their rights as well as on national issues such their opposition against the Charter Change. 

“Young people, workers, and professional LGBTQIA+ are presently the face of the community’s resistance to this measure, which would ultimately lead to privatized and less accessible education, depressed real wages, and more opportunities for trapos to continue swindling the people — all merely to line the pockets of foreign businessmen,” Valmores said on ABS-CBN News. 

“For these reasons, the LGBTQIA+ community will not hold back this Pride month in asserting our demands: democratic rights and protection through the SOGIESC Equality Bill, inclusive spaces and dignified wages through minimum wage increases across the board, and a new Philippine framework towards a genuinely independent foreign policy,” she added.

For more than 20 years, the SOGIESC Equality Bill has been filed in Congress. However, it faced various iterations and has languished.