A Cebu City councilor is proposing creating the Cebu City Office of the LGBTQ+ Affairs (CCOLA) to be the overall coordinating office in the implementation of programs and projects of the national and local government that ensure the advancement of the rights, interests, and welfare of the LGBTQ+ community.
Councilor Rey Gealon, who proposed the ordinance, said the CCOLA will also assist in providing assistance to members of the city’s LGBTQ+ community in availing of and getting easy access to government services.
“There is a need to create an office within the Cebu City Government which shall be specifically dedicated to the LGBTQ+ community and to make the programs and services provided and mandated by the government more accessible to them,” Councilor Gealon said in his proposal.
While we acknowledge our LGBTQ+ community has certain issues they may want addressed, these issues have not risen to the level where they require a separate office in the city government, not to mention a budget that can be better spent somewhere else, or space that can be better used by another office.
With no disrespect meant to the city’s LGBTQ+ community, there are more pressing needs that require the establishment of a government office, like our issue about flooding for example.
As to the proposed CCOLA being able to provide vital government services to LGBTQ+ community, we don’t think there is any discrimination that prevents the LGBTQ+ community from getting any vital government service at all. So far here there has been no report of any government worker treating anyone less just because they belong to this particular community.
Of course we are not saying there is no discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community. There is. There will always be those who believe that those who think differently from them should be treated differently. There will always be those who stick to a bigoted point of view that the LGBTQ+ community are different in a bad way. How easily they forget the contributions of the LGBTQ+ community to society.
However, like we said earlier, their issues have not reached a point where they urgently require a separate office.