Andronico Del Rosario
Support for the Anti-Discrimination Bill, once called the SOGIE Bill, has been picking up steam outside the plenary as the 18th Congress continues to debate whether or not the bill should be passed into law.
Celebrities have been some of the bill’s biggest supporters outside of the LGBT community who pushed for the bill.
Content creator and online personality Mimiyuuuh shared this post of a netizen that shows a woman berating and assaulting a transwoman in Antipolo, Rizal.
OH YUNG MGA STRAIGHT DYAN NA NAGNONO TO SOGIE BILL!! HINDI NIYO IKINATATAKOT ANG PAGLALAKAD SA DAAN KASI WALA NAMANG ALING SUSAN ANG MAGBABATO NG BATO SA INYO. WALA KAYONG KARAPATANG HUMINDI SA ISANG BAGAY NA NI MINSAN HINDI NIYO NARANASAN. https://t.co/MsXBzsNzxU
— mimiyuuuh 🦖 (@mimiyuuuh) November 6, 2020
Pia Magalona also chimed in, sharing her thoughts not just as a supporter of the bill but as a resident of Antipolo.
Bilang residente ng Antipolo, ikinasusuklam ko ang pagmamaltrato na inaabot ni Alexis at ng mga tulad niya’ng walang laban sa ganito’ng kahayupang nangyayari sa araw-araw. @jetvalle #YESToSOGIEBill
(Yung mga ayaw, research pls!) https://t.co/2CRAhyOSk2
— Pia Magalona ⁷ (@piamagalona) November 6, 2020
Other celebrities—both online and IRL—continued to show support and highlight why the bill is needed.
Macoy Dubs
https://twitter.com/macoydubs1/status/1324599878383624192?s=21
Kyo Qujano
Imagine nanahimik ka lang na naglalakad pauwi tapos may mang gagago lang sayo just because of who you are.
Kaya kailangan natin tong SOGIE BILL.
#YESToSOGIEBill #PassADBNow https://t.co/tTi6cUwtxY— KYO (@kyoquijano) November 6, 2020
K Brosas
#SOGIEEqualityNow 👍 https://t.co/np3L9WSb0K
— carmela brosas (@kbrosas) November 6, 2020
John “Sweet” Lapus
Ayan para sa mga mang-mang. 🙌💪🌈 https://t.co/Zljyvpr8Tz
— John Lapus (@KorekKaJohn) November 5, 2020
Even Kathryn Bernardo and Maris Racal have made her thoughts known.
https://twitter.com/jphabac/status/1324306028733755393?s=21
Dreaming of the day discrimination ends. #SOGIEEqualityNow https://t.co/E3vOT2pJWZ
— Maris Racal (@MissMarisRacal) November 5, 2020
These are but a few of the Anti-Discrimination Bill’s (ADB) supporters. But why? Why are people clamoring for a bill that seeks to institutionalize something that should be innate in all of us?
Their support all boils down to one thing: the ADB isn’t about the rights of the LGBT community anymore. A quick run-through of the bill shows that it does, in fact, apply to ALL Filipinos—regardless of your sexual orientation or gender identification and expression.
The bill also protects everyone from people who diss others based solely on their social status, religion, educational attainment, and more.
This, however, presents a problem as this has been enshrined in the 1987 Constitution under Article 3 or the Bill of Rights.
The fact that there needs to be a separate law for something as simple as human decency seems to have escaped our psyche. Hate crimes against the LGBT community have been on the rise. The entertainment industry continues to capitalize on the Filipino mentality of treating members of the LGBT community as nothing more than cannon fodder, the butt end of jokes.
You’ll even hear publicly elected officials use the words bakla and bayut—the Visayan term for gay—as derogatory words.
This is why meetings like this and people like Rep. Geraldine Roman matter.
The SOGIE Equality Bill is being heard at the HOR Committee on Women & Gender Equality now.
Show your support by using #PassADBNow and #SOGIEEqualityNow.
You can watch it LIVE on facebook at https://t.co/CkhuwDu1PS
— PANTAY #Equality4All (@PANTAYtayo) November 4, 2020
This entire thread from the Philippine Anti-Discrimination Alliance of Youth Leaders or PANTAY also contains most of the concerns against the ADB being addressed by the people who have pushed for equal treatment for all.
