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Fulfilling the promise of basic fairness
Sponsorship speech of Akbayan Rep. Kaka Bag-ao on the Anti-Discrimination Bill (HB515)
September 27, 2011 / Committee on Women and Gender Equality
Good afternoon, Madam Chair and honorable members of the committee.
In an interview in New York during the Asia Society Forum last month, President Noynoy Aquino reiterated his position on LGBT rights: that while the Aquino government is not ready to tackle the issue of same-sex marriage, it believes that LGBTs should not be discriminated.[1]
The statement of the President breaks the atmosphere of invisibility and silence that the previous GMA administration has build around the issue of equal rights. For almost a decade, the Philippine government turned a blind eye to the plight of Filipino lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders, and instead of engaging in meaningful dialogues about the inclusiveness of human dignity, it allowed divisive sectarianism to trump equal rights. Not everyone would be pleased about the stance that President Aquino made on same-sex marriage: by stating that it is not his administration’s priority, those who are opposed to it would see the stand as tepid; on the other hand, those pushing for same-sex marriage would see it as a concession to the Catholic Church.
But whether one is anti or pro same-sex marriage, it is important for all of us to step out of the hostile atmosphere that has marked our discussions on LGBT rights and go back to where the debate should be situated: within the context of human rights and equality. This is why the pronouncement of President Aquino is important: that whether we believe in same-sex marriage or not, we should all make a stand for equality.
The nature of the bill that we are tackling today, Madam Chair, is precisely that: basic fairness, and realizing the promise of equality guaranteed in our constitution. It reflects the yearning of many Filipinos for that chance to be treated as equals, and to live in a nation where dignity is not determined by one’s gender, or the sex of the person we found ourselves loving.
Basic fairness is the prayer of any mother whose child is being bullied in school for being too effeminate, for cross-dressing, for being “bakla”. It is the common aspiration of lesbian and gay students who, having faced prejudice in their schools and communities because of their sexuality, fear that they would encounter the same gender-based biases once they’ve entered the labor force.
When a gay man goes home after spending three nights in jail, where he suffered extortion, physical abuse, and humiliation in the hands of policemen who arrested him for vagrancy or prostitution, solely on the basis of the presence of condoms, his thoughts would be on the ordeal that he went through. This incident of police abuse would sear on his mind how dignity could be taken away easily and arbitrarily by abusive law enforcers. Same-sex marriage would be the last thing he’d think about.
Reducing LGBT rights to same-sex marriage renders invisible the inequality and abuse faced by Filipino LGBTs. This is the status quo, Madam Chair, that the Anti-Discrimination Bill aims to cure: we hope to provide a remedy for the inequality experienced by LGBTs by ensuring that human rights violations committed against them are penalized.
The Anti-Discrimination bill introduces the language of sexual orientation and gender identity in our laws and defines these concepts. This is not entirely novel, in a sense, since both sexual orientation and gender identity have been mentioned in some of our laws already. Currently, there are four laws where the above terms have been mentioned:
- Under Section 59 of the PNP Reform Act of 1998, the NAPOLCOM is mandated to establish a gender sensitivity program that includes the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation;
- Section 17 of the Magna Carta for Public Social Workers (2007) includes protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation as one of the rights of government social workers;
- The Magna Carta of Women (2009) has included sexual orientation as a protected category in its human rights principles (Section 3, para 4) and gender identity in its women in sports provision (Section 14);
- The definition of crimes against humanity under the Philippine Act on Crimes Against International Humanitarian Law, Genocide, and Other Crimes Against Humanity (2009) includes widespread persecution against any groups or collectivity on the basis of several grounds, including sexual orientation.
