KaladKaren’s experience shows urgency to pass SOGIE bill — Hontiveros

MANILA, Philippines — The reported case of discrimination that a popular comedian experienced over the weekend shows the need to pass the measure seen to protect the members of LGBT community from unjust treatment.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros stressed this point Wednesday, days after comedian Jervi Li, popularly known as KaladKaren Davila, and her friends were barred from entering the H&J Sports Bar and Restaurant in Makati City due to their sexual orientation.

Li posted a video of her experience on social media.

“Unless we have a law that secures the basic rights and welfare of all LGBTs, the discrimination that happened in Makati will never happen again. LGBT persons are easy targets of harassment and violence,” Hontiveros said.

The senator said that KaladKaren’s experience should serve as a “signal” to her colleagues in the upper house to finally end the debate on the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression (SOGIE) Equality Bill and move for its immediate passage.

“This is a wake-up call for the Senate to pass with urgency the SOGIE Equality Bill. We cannot afford to delay this measure any longer,” Hontiveros said.

The House of Representatives approved a counterpart measure last year.

But in the Senate, the bill has spent 623 days in the period of interpellations since it was sponsored.

“I believe that we have already exhausted all the discussion points for this proposed measure and have gone above and beyond in terms of ensuring that this bill will be fair to all,” Hontiveros said.

She added: “Any further delay on the bill means quality of life, even life and death, to the members of the LGBT community who are subjected to daily harassment, discrimination and abuse.”