ANTIPOLO CITY – Even as leaders from the local LGBTQIA community expressed their appreciation for a somewhat pro-LGBTQIA local government unit (LGU), at this year’s Pride observance, they still highlighted the absence of an actual anti-discrimination policy that will protect the human rights of LGBTQIA people in the city.
“We have small successes that we should rightfully celebrate,” said in the vernacular Antipolo-based Murphy Red, who co-organized Stonewall Manila in 1994, recognized as the very first Pride march in the Philippines and in Asia and the Pacific. As an example, Antipolo City has an anti-discrimination policy related to the workplace. And yet “we should mark Pride as a protest since still not all of us have human rights.”
“We need to use Pride to promote equality,” added Shane R. Parreno, co-founder of the Transpinay of Antipolo Organization (TAO), a pioneering transgender organization in the city.
But also, added Kristine T. Ibardolaza, kagawad from Barangay Mayamot, “we mark Pride not just for LGBTQIA people, but for everyone to also have pride.”
This is also a moment to call for unity, said Parreno, who is urging local LGBTQIA organizations to surface so “all of us can be seen, can be counted.”
Currently, TAO is working with local politicians to pass an anti-discrimination ordinance (ADO) to protect the human rights of LGBTQIA people in Antipolo. And “its passage is near,” said Parreno.
Ibardolaza added that the local ADO should be passed in the next year/s, if not month/s.
But for Murphy Red, exactly because there are still no laws ensuring that all LGBTQIA people’s human rights are protected, “dapat mabagsik ang paggunita natin sa Pride (our Pride should be feisty),” he said. – WITH ALBERT TAN MAGALLANES, JR. AND ARTHUR ABAD NWABIA
