Ladlad Party List and the Anti-Discrimination Bill

Ms. Bemz Benedito

Ladlad Party List has been with the campaign for the Anti-Discrimination Bill since the beginning. In 1998, Ladlad Chairman Emeritus Danton Remoto was one of our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender leaders who sat down every Wednesday night for two months running to write the bill and what would become the first Anti-Discrimination Bill in the whole of Asia.

Ladlad Party List believed that the bill should be packaged as a human rights bill, for nobody in his or her right mind would wage a fight against a human rights bill in the late 20th century. Ladlad Party List deemed that the focus is the favor of a whole, all-embracing bill that would center on equal rights in the access of public establishments, workplace and in the schools.

Ladlad Party List was clear in the beginning that the right to study and the right to work and to practice one's profession and business was and is paramount in the panoply of rights we want for all Filipino LGBTs. Education is the way to liberation of the self from bondage of the mind and of the socio-political circumstances of one's birth. Work affirms one's self and is a way for self-formation and forging of one's independent identity.

Thus, our party's platform has worked in parallel with the rights being prayed for by the ADB. We want equal rights for students not to be bullied by their homophobic classmates, teachers, and schools. We want equal rights for skilled workers and graduates who want to work in a place where they are qualified to do so.

Many stories of discrimination are happening still in our country -- of students being bullied, of transsexuals being barred from malls, restaurants and bars, of gays in banks not being trusted enough with high positions, because of the silly fear that they will just give the bank's money to their boyfriends, of lesbians not being hired because they are not "feminine enough", of bisexuals still hiding in the deepest, darkest part of the closet for fear of being found that they have a different love, a different life.

The journey for the passage of the ADB has been on the road for almost 13 years. It is a human rights bill that should find no difficulty being passed in a generally democratic and egalitarian Congress that have passed the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act, Magna Carta for Women, the Violence against Women and Children Law, and other such bills that gave equal footing to the marginalized among us.

It is time to give Filipino LGBTs their place under the sun, for we are also citizens of this country, we strive for productive lives and we are faithful taxpayers of the land, and we are all God's children living under the roof of His magnanimous love.

Thank you

Posted in: Anti-Discrimination Bill,Ladlad,LGBT