National LGBTQI+ alliance Bahaghari and Gabriela Women’s Party announced that they collaborated with Angkas Philippines to equip the platform’s workers with “the appropriate knowledge, confidence, and experience, and enjoin them in advancing the advocacy for gender equality and safe spaces.”
Dubbed “ANGKASama sa Kulayaan”, the partnership is hoped to contribute to our shared advocacy for equality and an end to discrimination and abuse toward Filipino LGBTQIA+, said Reyna Valmores, Bahaghari chairperson.
Saluting the platform’s workers for “tirelessly providing service to ordinary Filipinos despite the lack of better transportation system in the country, especially in urban centers like Metro Manila,” Valmores noted that there are “tragic stories of LGBTQIA+ folks being discriminated and verbally abused in spaces like transportation network vehicle service (TNVS).”
For her, therefore, there is a need to address this issue and educate the platform’s workers in eradicating similar situations.
“We hope to engage with similar corporations where male workers outnumber women and LGBTQIA+ workers and make them allies for equality,” Valmores ended.