Cover The annual LGBT Pride Parade, led by Metro Manila Pride, recently gathered 70,000 Filipinos in 2019. (Photo: Ryan Eduard Benaid/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The annual LGBT Pride Parade, led by Metro Manila Pride, recently gathered 70,000 Filipinos in 2019. (Photo: Ryan Eduard Benaid/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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After 23 years, why is it that the SOGIE Equality Bill continues to face big hurdles?
Matters concerning gender prove to be quite a long and tumultuous ordeal in the Philippines. But for the first time since the Marcos administration took office, the House of Representatives addressed last February the concerns on the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Expression (SOGIE) Equality Bill.
It caused quite a stir—with Citizens’ Battle Against Corruption (CIBAC) Representative Eddie Villanueva walking out after he requested a deferment. His request led to a lengthy suspension and eventually getting denied.
According to him, an anti-discrimination bill is already in talks by the human rights committee led by Manila 6th District Representative Bienvenido Abante Jnr. This news encouraged debate among the masses, especially netizens with strong opinions.
This story attempts to briefly explain the bills mentioned by the lawmakers: the SOGIE Equality Bill—the anti-discrimination act based on SOGIE, and House Bill No. 188—the anti-discrimination bill based on the premise of “equal protection for everyone”.
House Bill No. 188
In a congressional hearing last November 2022, Abante, Villanueva, and religious groups clashed with LGBTQ+ rights advocates. They argued that an anti-discrimination bill based on SOGIE is no longer needed since a more comprehensive bill is already in the works.
Authored by Abante, the bill seeks equal protection for everyone. It is an act that prohibits discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, race, religion or belief, sex or gender or sexual orientation, language, disability, educational attainment, and others. They stress that this would cater not only to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual in the community but to everyone who are discrimination victims.
Senate majority leader Joel Villanueva, son of Representative Villanueva, also raised similar concerns in the Senate version of the hearing on the SOGIE bill. Last February 8, with tens and hundreds of letters from different religious groups in his hands, he had his fellow senators refer the SOGIE Equality Bill to the rules committee he chairs.
Despite the worries from both senators Risa Hontiveros and Loren Legarda on the bill languishing under his watch, he promised that it wouldn’t come to that. He claims that he has “nothing against” the LGBTQ+ community.
Above Gay Pride attendees display posters asking for equal rights for the LGBT community at the Remedios Circle in Manila. (Photo: NurPhoto/Corbis via Getty Images)
Gay Pride attendees display posters asking for equal rights for the LGBT community at the Remedios Circle in Manila. (Photo: NurPhoto/Corbis via Getty Images)
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SOGIE Equality Bill
With Hontiveros as the main proponent, this bill recognises the fundamental rights of every person regardless of sex, gender, age, class, status, disability, religion, and political beliefs. It’s an anti-discrimination bill promoting human dignity, addressing all forms of discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
Read more: SOGIE Equality Bill: Everything You Need To Know—Supporters, Origins, And More
Despite this bill's difficult journey, allied lawmakers and the LGBTQ+ community continue to fight for it. Members of the LGBTQ+ and its legislative allies believe that it's an issue no longer up for debate—people forget that its very core is on human rights.
Groups further press that SOGIE matters are for everyone. “Everyone has SOGIE,” they stress.
In an interview with Tatler last 2020, Hontiveros explained why she tirelessly pushes for the bill. “I fight against discrimination because it is anathema to my vision of a society that allows everyone to partake and participate. And equality is one of the sweetest virtues of that vision,” she says. “I hope in my lifetime, we all learn a little better [on] what it truly means to share this world with others, regardless of SOGIE.”
SOGIE advocates succeeded in 2017 when the House under the Duterte administration approved the bill. However, the proposal faces hurdles in the Senate.
Still, Hontiveros is hopeful in this fight. “We deal with bigotry by standing our ground and sharing the basic heart behind these principles: that love conquers all...We maintain firmness in our belief that this world is for all of us to share in equality, with dignity.”
Above Photo: Gotta Be Worth It/Pexels
Photo: Gotta Be Worth It/Pexels
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A few points to ponder on
Numerous comprehensive anti-discrimination bills are being pursued in Congress. The SOGIE Equality Bill particularly has been continuously weakened and revised for two decades now. Countless meetings were conducted on the matter, and more will inevitably follow.
While lawmakers take time discussing the inner workings of these bills, outside the four walls of their humbled institutions, hundreds and thousands of people continue to face unjust discrimination.
In fact, according to a survey by the Rainbow Rights Project and Metro Manila Pride in 2019, 62 per cent of 400 LGBTQ+ youth experiences discrimination based on SOGIE, among others.
This doesn't stop at schools. In the workplace, aside from the lack of employment diversity, companies have been slow in adopting policies that safeguard employees from SOGIE-based discrimination. In a study by Patricia Angela Luzano Enriquez, 25 per cent of LGBTQ+ respondents reported that they experienced harassment in the workplace. 60 per cent of them were the target of derogatory jokes and slurs.
Representative Geraldine Roman, in all her privileged speeches, relentlessly pushes for the passing of the SOGIE bill. “Now is the time to fight even harder, to continue to voice our support for equality measures that will greatly improve the lives of all Filipinos, regardless of our sexual orientation, gender identity or expression,” she says in a Facebook post.
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Angela Nicole Regis Guiral is a digital editor at Tatler Philippines. She studied journalism and has since written features that look closely at how culture, lifestyle and social impact converge, while occasionally wandering into the worlds of style and travel.
