Sometime in 2013, students at the Bicol University’s College of Arts and Letters (BUCAL) encountered a flippant statement during the election of student leaders about “forming a partylist for LGBT students since most of the students who actively aspire to be leaders are LGBT anyway,” recalled Lester Dellosa.
So on March 13, 2013, Bicol University Moving Ahead Gender Equality, Empowering and Nurturing Talents (BU MAGENTA) was formed to “give flesh to that thought”. Behind the group were a faculty member of the English department, Ariel Guban, who is now its adviser; and LGBT students of the College of Industrial Technology (BU CIT) including Dean Babelonia (a.k.a. Beyonce) and Jerwin Macasinag (a.k.a. Chesa). Dellosa helms it.
As a startup organization, numerous challenges were encountered – e.g. “We didn’t even have an office,” Dellosa said. Though, to deal with this, “we find ways to hold meetings and events”, such as “meeting in boarding houses of the officers/members”. Obviously, there’s also the “lack of financial support so that the main source of our funds are from the members.” To deal with this, “we make sure we partner with different organizations out there to achieve the goals and objectives of our organization.” And then there’s the non-acceptance of some sectors in the university – e.g. a member of a religious student organization handed them pamphlets to inform them of the “errors” of being LGBT.
Dellosa noted, nonetheless, that the biggest challenge they have so far faced is the “seeming apathy of members of the LGBT community.” In BU Magenta’s case, “the passivity of the members can’t be stressed enough,” he said. Nonetheless, he looks at this as a challenge for the leaders “to make a way for them to participate more.”
This is the only way, said Dellosa, for “us to be able to help LGBT people to be more than what society expects us to be.”
BU Magenta is proud for being part of various activities both on-campus and off-campus that stress LGBT participation. For instance, “we partner for disaster risk reduction (DRR) efforts via repacking of goods for those affected, we promote HIV and AIDS awareness and so on,” Dellosa said. “In our organization, we don’t want to stagnate. We always push our members to create new and innovative ways instead of just redoing old concepts (of expressing being LGBT).”
Already there are plans to become bigger by “holding Pride events, and others that we can be proud of,” Dellosa said. “This is our way to showcase that we are here, and yes, we matter.”
To join BU Magenta, one has to be enrolled/have been enrolled in Bicol University. There is a membership fee of P50 per semester to become a member of BU Magenta. For more information, visit https://www.facebook.com/BU.MAGENTA/.
