Neophyte senator Imee R. Marcos wants to expand the list of punishable acts of discrimination committed against members of the LGBTQIA community as stipulated in Senate Bill 412, which also prescribes measures to preempt such acts.
Marcos has said that the incident of Gretchen Diez, a transgender woman handcuffed by the police after attempting to use a women’s toilet in Quezon City, was “a blatant act of discrimination that defies Quezon City’s Gender-Fair Ordinance and makes me livid.”
So Marcos wants for the “harassment of LGBTQIA members by law enforcers to be a punishable offense in the Senate bill”, just as she wants to prescribe gender-neutral toilets, similar to those specially assigned for persons with disabilities, to protect transgender women in particular from public humiliation.
Diez recently made the news because of her ordeal while trying to access the female toilet in Farmers Plaza, a mall in Cubao, Quezon City. But Diez, who has been in the limelight following her experience and not because of her involvement in LGBTQIA advocacy, now fashions herself as the sole representative of the local LGBTQIA community/as the “face of the LGBT movement”.
The veracity of Diez’s narrative is now also put in question.
Among the other punishable offenses against LGBTQIA people that Marcos added to those in previous bills are the refusal to admit a child in school due to a parent’s or guardian’s sexual orientation, preventing a child from exhibiting gender identity, denial of access to public services including military service, and exposing an LGBTQIA member’s sexual orientation without prior consent.
Among the other punishable offenses against LGBTQIA people that Marcos added to those in previous bills are the refusal to admit a child in school due to a parent’s or guardian’s sexual orientation, preventing a child from exhibiting gender identity, denial of access to public services including military service, and exposing an LGBTQIA member’s sexual orientation without prior consent.
If found guilty, offenders must pay a fine of not less than Php100,000 or face one to six years in jail.
“We must establish the equal footing of LGBT members as Filipino citizens and as human beings,” Marcos said. “LGBT members deserve the fullest measure of participation in society.”
As FYI, Marcos is the daughter of the late dictator Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. Ousted in 1986, the Marcos family is said to have stolen from $5 billion to $10 billion from the coffers of the country, based on documents provided by the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG). Also, under the Marcos presidency, Task Force Detainees of the Philippines has recorded: 2,668 incidents of arrests, 398 disappearances, 1,338 salvagings, 128 frustrated salvagings and 1,499 killed or wounded in massacres. Meanwhile, Amnesty International reported: 70,000 imprisoned, 34,000 tortured and 3,240 documented as killed.
