Marcos Jr. and his never-ending pretense to support LGBTQIA Filipinos.
LGBTQIA organization Bahaghari expressed its disappointment, though not surprise, in hearing that for the third consecutive time, president Ferdinand Marcos Jr. made zero mention of the LGBTQIA community, let alone the SOGIE Equality Bill as a priority measure, in his State of the Nation Address (SONA).
“The Filipino LGBTQ+ community has never been lacking in consistently and proactively voicing our concerns for gender equality and stronger protections against discrimination in the Philippines. The fact that… Marcos Jr. could not even feign interest and mention us speaks volumes to how we are invisible in his administration,” Bahaghari stated in a statement.
For Bahaghari, LGBTQIA Filipinos “do not deserve a president who will have us beg and grovel at his feet just to be recognized as Filipinos with rights worth protecting.”
The organization, therefore, continues to to demand that the Marcos administration pursue equality in all forms in the Philippines, including equality in the realm of civil rights — be it in anti-discrimination policy, legal gender recognition, or marriage equality.
But Bahaghari was also critical to the rest of the president’s address as it’s “all talk and no meaningful action in some parts, misleading and falsified information in others.”
“How can Marcos parade his PHP 35 wage increase as an achievement if this insulting value is not even enough to match the price increase of basic goods in the last two years? Marcos talks about self-sufficiency, but why is he still allowing the Rice Tarrification Law to remain when it has only contributed to the Philippines embarrassingly becoming the number one importer of rice in the world instead of being self-sufficient? The promise of a POGO ban is welcome on the topic of national sovereignty, but why not do the same for US military sites and other lopsided defense agreements that are contradictory to the claim of pursuing an independent foreign policy?”
In the end, and as a whole, “Bahaghari rates Marcos’ SONA a big F for FAILURE. Just like any other president before him, Marcos palpably ignores the plight of LGBTQIA Filipinos, and his priorities are nothing more than a series of pro-foreigner, pro-mega business owner, anti-poor, and anti-Filipino policies.”
