The Anti-Discrimination Bill covers a wide range of areas where LGBTs are open to abuse. This includes employment, education, public service (including military service), commercial establishments and health services, among others. I have talked to gay men who bested the competition in employment exams but were turned down during job interviews because their voices curled and their wrists flailed in the air. I have heard of students in colleges and universities (allegedly San Beda, for one) that has a masculinity clause where effeminate students are told to shape up; otherwise, they cannot enroll for second year studies. Discos, restaurants and hotels have also turned away guests – especially transsexuals – simply because of their gender identity. The other features of this brave, new bill is to ban and impose sanctions against prohibitions in self-assembly for LGBTs, as well as stop psychiatric tests and harassment from the police and the military. In short, what this bill seeks to underscore is that LGBTs should have the same – and equal – rights that the rest of the Filipinos get as citizens and even taxpayers of this country.
I was part of the committee that wrote a draft of the bill for three months in 1999. I remember the Wednesday night meetings punctuated by laughter and cheer and eating of chichiria full of monosodium glutamate because we had no money. A lot of MSG, yes, but also a group fired by a sense of mission. At the back of our minds we knew we were pushing a boulder up that hill, like Sisyphus of old. A lesbian and gay rights bill in conservative, strictly Catholic Philippines? But being the hopeless optimist that I am, I said let’s re-package the bill. Let’s not include same-sex partnership in civil unions, which Rep. Bellaflor Angara-Castillo included in her version of the bill. Do away with civil unions and call this a human-rights bill. In the new millennium, certainly nobody would object to a solid, clear, well-argued human-rights bill.
In June 2001, Lagablab and Amnesty International launched the Stop Discrimination Now! campaign to press Philippine Congress to approve the bill. In addition, in December 2001, the Congress’ Committee on Civil, Political, and Human Rights approved the bill "in principle" and opened it for further revisions.
I remember that day so well, a cool and balmy day when I hitched a ride with Atty. Venir Cuyco, who wrote the concise but brilliant first draft of the bill that we so painstakingly read and took apart, like the many tiny pieces of a clock. The committee invited around 10 leaders of the LGBT movement, as well as representatives from the Catholic Church, the military, and the police. After I gave my oral arguments for the bill, I also addressed the information officer of the PNP and asked his help in striking down the Anti-Vagrancy Law that some policemen use to harass and extort bribes from gay men without IDs who walk on the streets at night. In fairness, the police general agreed and said this law is, indeed, an antiquated law that should be repealed. Contrast that with the laconic statement of the information officer sent by the military, who curtly said: "We have no comments about this bill." Which sent a congressman flying in a fit of rage. He said, "This is third time we have invited the military to get their side on the bills presented in Congress–and we always get the same answer. Why don’t you study first the bill before coming here? You are wasting our time!"The military officer turned purple and red and darkened with embarrassment and rage, but he could not do anything. We are no longer under martial law, and believe it or not this Congress is slow but it works. Bayan Muna Representatives Satur Ocampo and Liza Maza supported the bill, as well as my friend, Rep. Nereus Acosta. The United Council of Churches of the Philippines also supported the bill, while the Catholic Church, true to its stripes, moped and said, Well, if we give them equal rights now, what will prevent them from getting married next time?
The bill passed, to our amazement and delight, then was sent to the Technical Working Committee for further revisions. After another series of dialogues between the Committee and LGBT organizations, the bill was approved and tossed to the plenary session for debates and final approval. And on the first month of the new year, the Anti-Discrimination Bill reached the third base and scored a home run, without any opposition.
Because everybody is busy about the citizenship of Fernando Poe Jr. and everybody is busy bashing the Commission on Elections whose performance so far in the 2004 elections is simply beneath contempt. To be enacted into law, however, the Anti-Discrimination Bill had to be approved by the Senate, and there went the rub. The Senate went into recess after Feb. 6, when the whole country would wait with bated breath for what many think would be a messy, sorry election season. After Senate approval, the bill had to be approved also by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The bill had no counterpart in the Senate, and therefore, the bill as approved and transmitted by Congress had to be approved by the Committee on Youth, Women and Family Relations before it could be deliberated in a plenary session.
Jonas Bagas, the tireless secretary-general of Lagablab, offered a reading of the situation. "The Philippines will be having its general elections ion May 10, 2004, and several members of the Philippine Senate will be running for various elective posts. In the Committee on Youth, Women and Family Relations, Senator Rodolfo Biazon, a former military general, will be running for reelection. The chairperson of the committee, Senator Loren Legarda-Leviste, is running for vice president. That it is an election year is both positive and negative. The Anti-Discrimination Bill is one of the two bills (the other one is about reproductive health) that the Catholic hierarchy has staunchly opposed, and they may use this political opportunity to threaten possible supporters of the bill in the Senate. On the other hand, the reverse is also possible: After the ouster of former President Joseph Estrada, which had been supported strongly by the Catholic Church and the recent shifts in the political alignments of the current administration, the Catholic hierarchy is, in many ways, politically isolated."
True, and there is no Catholic vote in this country, as seen by the presidential victories of Fidel V. Ramos in 1992 and Joseph Estrada in 1998 – despite vigorous and vociferous protests and campaigns mounted by the former Archbishop of Manila, Jaime Cardinal Sin. But true to form, the Senate slammed shut its mighty, narra doors for the Anti-Discrimination Bill. Senator Loren Legarda-Leviste, who earlier said they might schedule a hearing tomorrow to beat the Feb. 6 deadline, failed to do so. Reason: A mysterious fire in her office. Senator Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan, in whose committee the Senate version of the bill languished for a year, also failed to rise to the occasion. One of his not-too-bright office staff even had the cheek to ask: "Why do you still need an Anti-Discrimination Bill?" Well, is the sun shining outside? Is our country part of Southeast Asia? I worked in Congress in the mid-1980s and had to deal with congressional staff who were mostly children and family of the Congressmen. They were uniformly dull, their minds rusty.
Well, we began this campaign five years ago and we never dreamt we would reach this far. But we have to go back again to the 13th Philippine Congress and re-file the bill and seek a strong supporter in the forthcoming Senate. What we still need is a critical mass, media clout, along with wills of steel to push this bill into its full and bright flowering in the years to come.