Gays ask Aquino to back anti-discrimination, RH bills

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines – Members of gays and lesbians groups here danced to disco music along downtown Baguio on Sunday, celebrating the 4th Baguio Pride Week by preaching gay rights in their colorful costumes and wigs.

But behind the make-up and Michael Jackson afro wigs was a serious campaign to draw the attention of incoming President Benigno Aquino III — scheduled to be sworn into office on June 30 — to issues of gay rights and reproductive health issues, said Bemz Benedito, the first nominee and national secretary of the party-list group Ang Ladlad.

Benedito said the national organization of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders (LGBT) was persuaded by incoming Social Welfare Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman to join the Aquino volunteer network and campaign for Aquino in exchange for support for measures institutionalizing reproductive health (RH) and anti-discrimination laws.

“Maniningil na kami (It’s time for payback),” he said.

Ang Ladlad had taken note of Aquino’s conservative stance regarding safe sex and his decision to appoint Bro. Armin Luistro, president of the Catholic De La Salle University, as education secretary, Benedito said.

Luistro earlier said he would review the sex education modules that the Department of Education has been set to implement this school year.

Benedito said Ang Ladlad was supposed to take part in the May 10 elections carrying RH and rights issues as its platform, but was refused accreditation by the Commission on Elections owing to ethical standards espoused by the Bible and the Koran.

On April 9, the Supreme Court reversed Comelec’s decision, arguing that to reject a gay party-list group “on purely moral grounds amounts more to a statement of dislike and disapproval of homosexuals rather than a tool to further any substantial public interest.”

Benedito said the high court’s ruling came too late for their campaign. “So we campaigned for Noynoy and we now have started lobbying aggressively with the [representatives who won the elections] to try to get the anti-discrimination and RH bills reinstated for the incoming Congress,” he said.

“We have just sat with Quezon City Rep. Feliciano “Sonny” Belmonte Jr. [who is being groomed by the Liberal Party as Speaker] and he said he would support the bills in principle, provided we can get him the numbers,” he said.

“We are organizing lobby groups to talk to every congressman. Ang Ladlad currently has 30,000 registered members we could mobilize for the lobby,” Benedito said.

He said the high court ruling freed Ang Ladlad from taking a defensive stance, enabling it to begin organizing homosexuals under a unified party banner.

Cyrene Reyes, a member of the Baguio-based Lesbians for National Democracy (Lesbond), said the Baguio Pride Network convinced gays in neighboring La Trinidad, Benguet, to form their own organization and would be tapped to support Ang Ladlad in the 2013 polls.

Benedito said the LGBT sector had been fragmented by Comelec’s attitude toward Ang Ladlad and had joined other militant party-list groups, like Gabriela and Akbayan, to get their agenda deliberated in Congress.

“It would be a challenging next two years before we join the 2013 elections because we need to get these gay activists back under the Ang Ladlad banner. If we don’t get Noynoy’s ear, we will have to shepherd these issues ourselves in Congress,” he said.

“This is our last chance. The party-list system law (Republic Act 7941) gives party-list groups only two chances to win an election before it is disenfranchised. Since we lost on May 10, we need to win the 2013 elections or we may be forced to reorganize under a new party-list group,” Benedito said. –Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon