Metro Manila’s once-a-year and more commercial Pride party is slated on June 29, from 12PM, at the Marikina Sports Center, Marikina City.
Themed #ResistTogether, the event – as Pride events intend to do (though with different success levels) – eyes to showcase everything LGBTQIA.
Last year’s gathering – also held in Marikina City, where the event has been held since 2017 – was attended by an estimated 25,000 people, easily topping 2017’s estimated 8,000 participants. More than anything, this highlights the growing widespread popularity of everything LGBTQIA-related in the Philippines, with the show of force serving as advertising magnet for those targeting the pink market.
But the once-a-year party, even if well-attended, does not necessarily equate to promotion of LGBTQIA causes in the Philippines, since the challenge remains – not just for Pride’s organizers but the Filipino LGBTQIA community as a whole – on how to leverage the growing popularity and profit-earning of Pride parade to actually push for policies promoting their human rights.
Marikina City, for instance, may have hosted Metro Manila’s annual LGBTQIA Pride gathering for two years in a row (2017 and 2018); and it may have held its own autonomous Pride parade in 2016, but the city still does not have an anti-discrimination policy that protects the human rights of its LGBTQIA people.
The SOGIE Equality Bill may have also passed the Lower House in 2017; but with a Senate version still failing to pass, the Philippines continues not to have a law protecting the human rights of LGBTQIA Filipinos.
