Two bills calling for equal treatment and the prohibition of discrimination based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression (SOGIE) await passage in the Philippines legislature, both stalled due to pushbacks from conservative and religious groups. Despite concerted advocacy efforts, including a letter to President Marcos earlier that month by Equality Alliance with signatures of over 200 national and international organisations, neither of the two SOGIE Bills made the list for top priorities for passage in the Congress following a Legislative-Executive Development Council (LEDAC) meeting presided by the President in June, 2024.
The first Anti-discrimination Bill seeking prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation was filed in the Philippines Congress in January 2000 but it expired without a plenary conclusion. Multiple anti-discriminations Bills have been filed over the years by its proponents, making it one of the longest running campaigns in the Philippines legislature.
The current SOGIESC Equality Bill, filed in December 2022, is more inclusive, and includes discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics as prohibited grounds with respect to access to, inter alia, public service, media, employment, and education. The Equality Bill takes a broader approach to defining protected individuals and communities, vulnerabilities, and what constitutes discriminatory behaviour, protection of privacy, their empowerment through media, and a stronger mandate for the oversight committee to be formed under this act. In December 2022, the SOGIESC Equality Bill was endorsed through a report by the Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality, but was once again reverted back to the committee in February 2023 after religious groups sought to join the discussions. The Bill received House panel approval in May 2023, but there has been no progress since. The SOGIE Anti-discrimination Bill is another version of the Bill prohibiting discrimination on the basis of SOGIE, with a narrower approach, filed in the Senate and has been pending at the committee level since August 2023.
The President created a Special Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual (LGBTQIA+) Affairs through an executive order in December 2023, which has been criticised as a tactic to delay passing legislation on the issue. Many local level authorities have also passed ordinances to make SOGIE-based discrimination illegal, but advocates claim they have been ineffective in combating increased hate crimes in the absence of national law.
“It has been 24 years since the first version of what we know today as the SOGIE Equality Bill was filed in the Philippine Congress. Since then, advocates have fought for its passage. Despite surveys revealing that most Filipinos are accepting of the LGBTIQ+ community, lawmakers have refused to represent the interests of the Filipino people and continued to delay the passage of a comprehensive anti-discrimination bill. Amidst this, we remain hopeful. Various cities and municipalities have already enacted their own anti-discrimination ordinances. This year, the Philippines successfully held one of the biggest Prides in the whole of Asia.” said Benjie Aquino, Advocacy Consultant at ILGA Asia. “We will continue to fight tirelessly for our right to be free.”
The social acceptance for LGBTIQ individuals may seem to be growing, with the Department of Tourism promoting the Philippines as one of the most LGBTQIA+ friendly destinations in Asia. Over two hundred thousand people joined Quezon City’s Pride festival in 2024 despite torrential rain, and Filipino Pride was the most attended pride event in Asia. However, the pushback from the deeply rooted religious communities, many of them being represented in the government, is higher than ever. Online disinformation campaigns surrounding the Bills which claimed they undermine religious values of the community by ‘giving LGBTQIA+ individuals special rights’ and that it legalises same-sex marriages have been uncovered. The Senate committee members endorsing the SOGIE Equality Bill have emphasised that the Bill only seeks to promote equal treatment and does not have provisions on marriage equality or privilege LGBTIQ individuals over others. While these claims can be easily fact-checked, it was found that the homophobic sentiments surrounding the Bill were on the rise online.
The killing of Jennifer Laude in 2015 and the subsequent court verdict also reflected the discriminatory practices at an institutional level in the absence of specific legal protections for LGBTIQ persons. In this case, the court considered the perpetrator being angry with Laude upon discovering she had “male genitalia” to be a mitigating circumstance proving he had not acted with premeditation and convicted the perpetrator with the less serious crime of homicide, rather than murder. This decision sparked massive outrage and protests in the Philippines calling for enactment of anti-discrimination bill to protect the LGBTIQ community from discrimination.
Brenda Alegre, one of the Board of Directors at Society of Transsexual Women of the Philippines (STRAP) said, “The SOGIE Equality Bill or our Anti Discrimination bill has been pending for about 24 years now. LGBTQI plus Filipinos are not protected from the law if we experience prejudice, discrimination, exclusion and violence based on our SOGIESC. Apart from the brutal and unjust verdict on the Jennifer Laude case and other documented and undocumented violence towards us, there have been many experiences of oppression that we experience in many spheres of our lives including school, work, family, media and public spaces. The more than 30 local anti discrimination ordinances are only partly helpful but we need a country wide version with comprehensive and proper implementing guidelines. Spare us from further exclusion and discrimination and do not use religion as an excuse. In fact religion should be used to spread love and not hate. Be reminded of our pre-colonial past that not only included us but acknowledged our importance as babaylans, asogs, catalonan etc. Pass the SOGIE Equality Bill now.”
There has been increased pressure from the community on the government to pass legislation to protect LGBTIQ individuals against discrimination. Equality before law is a basic human right but the LGBTIQ population in the Philippines have faced violence, harassment, and have been discriminated against because of their sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics. ILGA Asia urges the Philippines government to prioritise the adoption of legislation to protect individuals from discrimination on the basis of SOGIESC in its best and most inclusive form.