LGBTQIA+ Filipinos may be just-as-affected by disasters, and yet they continue to be neglected in disaster responses. Sadly, “we don’t talk about this enough, and we should, in the hopes of forcing the coming up of solutions to deal with this.”
So said Michael David dela Cruz Tan, MDC, publisher and editor in chief of Outrage Magazine, the only LGBTQIA+ publication in the Philippines, as he talked about LGBTQIA+ exclusion in disaster responses at the gathering for Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity (AFSEE) in the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in London, UK.
Twenty fellows were chosen from18 different countries for the 2025-2026 cohort of AFSEE; Tan is the only one from the Philippines, with others coming from Indonesia, Brazil, Nepal, Kazakhstan, Chile, Germany, Lithuania, Malawi, Uganda, Georgia, Kenya, Malaysia, Argentina, Germany, Costa Rica, The Gambia, UK, Canada, Iran, US, and Pakistan.
Tan has been traveling to areas in the Philippines afected by disasters, natural and man-made – i.e. those affected by the Taal Volcano eruption, Legazpi City and nearby municipalities affected by the restless Mayon Volcano, and Zamboanga City that experienced political instability due to separatist groups. “All over many places, LGBTQIA+ people have not been spared in disasters,” Tan noted, “and yet responses did not often include them.”
For Tan, there are “layers and layers of issues that needs to be discussed here.”
For Tan, for instance, LGBTQIA+ people continue to not exist in law (e.g. non-recognition of marriage equality), so that those in relationships and who live together are not considered as households. Automatically, they are excluded when housing is provided, or even when direct ayuda is given. Transgender people, of course, feel unsafe in evacuation centers that do not consider their specific needs – e.g. gender-neural toilets since they are unable to use either male or female facilities due to discrimination based on their SOGIESC.
“We need, first, to highlight that these issues exist. But that we will also push for their inclusion to guarantee that eventually solutions are found to deal with them,” said Tan.
Tan recognizes that a problem like this needs a “sledgehammer of a solution”, and yet “we’re just chipping away on this issue”. It’s a start, “albeit small”. “The solutions aren’t coming as fast as they should, but, yeah… the recognition is at least already there,” he said.
Tan, who also founded Bahaghari Center for SOGIE Research, Education and Advocacy, Inc. (Bahaghari Center), is a seasoned journalist who won the Catholic Mass Media Awards for best investigative journalism, and was awarded with “Art that Matters-Literature” by Amnesty International-Philippines, among others. He completed his undergraduate degree (BA Communication Studies) from the University of Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia; and Master of Development Communication from the University of the Philippines-Open University. He authored Being LGBT in Asia: Philippines Country Report that traced the history of the LGBTQIA+ movement in the Philippines, and provided a blueprint on where it is headed; as well as the only journalistic stylebook for those providing media coverage on LGBTQIA+ people and issues in the country. He is also the author of Red Lives, a collection of stories of people infected and affected by HIV in the Philippines.
AFSEE was established in 2016 via a £64 million grant to LSE from the Atlantic Philanthropies.
