Ladlad's Remoto running for senator

MANILA, Philippines - An advocate of lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights yesterday announced his plan to run for senator in the 2013 mid-term polls.

In an interview at the Commission on Elections (Comelec), Danton Remoto said he will join the senatorial race but he could not ascertain yet under which political party.

“I don’t want to run but people are asking me to do so,” noted Remoto. He divulged he is in talks with three major political parties, but Pres. Aquino’s Liberal Party (LP) is not one of them.

In the 2010 polls, Remoto was supposed to run for senator but he was “dropped” from the LP’s senatorial line-up.

Remoto filed yesterday a Manifestation of Intent with the Comelec to withdraw his name from the list of nominees of Ladlad in view of his plan to run for senator.

“This is a historic moment for us, since the Comelec is no longer in the way of our journey to victory in the elections, the way it used to,” he said.

In 2010, the Supreme Court had reversed a Comelec resolution disqualifying Ladlad from the party-list race then on the ground of immorality.

The high tribunal had ordered the poll body to accredit the group as it ruled that homosexuality was not a crime.

Remoto said that Ladlad is confident to win at least two seats in the House of Representatives next year.

The other Ladlad nominees are Bemz Benedito, a sociologist who studied at Ateneo de Manila University; Germaine Trittle Leonin, who studied at the University of the Philippines; Raymond Alikpala, who used to be with the United Nations Commissioner on Human Rights; and Wilfredo Villocino, of the Gender and Development Office of Davao City.