Marikina may have hosted Metro Manila’s annual LGBTQI 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 does not have an anti-discrimination policy that protects the human rights of its LGBTQI people.
“If the national (offices) can’t legislate at their level, perhaps we could initiate one here in Marikina the soonest possible time,” Marikina City Mayor Marcy Teodoro said to Outrage Magazine.
Speaking to Outrage Magazine, Marikina Mayor Marcy R. Teodoro said that hosting Pride is a way to show the city’s support to Metro Manila’s LGBTQI community, particularly since his office in particular supports this community’s push for a nationally enacted anti-discrimination policy.
But with the continuing failure of the anti-discrimination bill to pass – this time in the Senate, with the bill in Congress passing in late 2017 with the help of the likes of Reps. Geraldine Roman and Kaka Bag-ao – “if the national (offices) can’t legislate at their level, perhaps we could initiate one here in Marikina the soonest possible time.”
The onus now is on the LGBTQI community – particularly those in Marikina City – to take Teodoro at his words by developing an anti-discrimination ordinance that will eventually be sent to Teodoro’s office for approval.
In the end, Teodoro said, “we want to be known as an inclusive community. We can only do that by recognizing everybody as all equal to each other.”
