Almost two and a half decades have passed since the first Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Expression (SOGIE) anti-discrimination bill was introduced in Congress. And for two and a half decades, it has languished in the halls of legislation, blocked by conservative groups, marred by disinformation campaigns and denied by political doublespeak.

Senate President Francis Escudero’s recent warning that the bill will be hard to pass in the current Senate due to some senators’ objections, therefore, is nothing new. But the continued delay in the bill’s passage has been deadly. The most LGBTQ+-friendly country in Asia, at least according to the Department of Tourism, has had at least 50 transgender and nonbinary individuals killed from 2010 to 2021. Thousands more have been discriminated against in schools, workplaces and public spaces.

But despite fierce opposition from conservative forces, the fight for SOGIE equality will be won through relentless campaigning. After all, our past victories were won not by caving in to the opposition, but by fighting in the halls of government and on the streets.

Local SOGIE-friendly ordinances such as Quezon City’s Gender Fair Ordinance and Right to Care Card were passed through grassroots campaigning. The fight in other localities may follow suit, pointing to these existing ordinances as working models that are tenable to pass at the local level.

But while these causes would support the great political work needed to pass a national SOGIE bill, solely focusing on local ordinances would still leave many without broad legal protection from discrimination. Progress must still be made on the national level.

Elected officials have tried to play a balancing act between SOGIE bill supporters and conservative groups who oppose it. While religious groups still hold enormous sway within the halls of power, Filipinos’ majority support for the passage of a SOGIE anti-discrimination bill signifies that the community’s political power cannot simply be tossed aside. 

Hence the flip-flopping. Former President Rodrigo Duterte, for example, has switched between certifying the SOGIE bill as urgent and opposing it for its supposedly discriminatory solution. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., meanwhile, has opted to create a toothless special committee on LGBTQ+ issues instead of heeding the calls of groups to certify the SOGIE bill as urgent.

Politicians’ recognition of the community’s growing political power must be used to tip the scales in our favor. With 19 senators already signifying support for the SOGIE bill, only a minority opposition stands in the way, which has resorted to delaying tactics to leave the bill languishing on the committee level.

But there is no cheap tactic that advocates can’t thwart if the calls to pass the bill become deafening enough. Mounting pressure on national officials through both the grassroots passage of local ordinances and national campaigns must continue. 

Bolstering a concerted multisectoral force is the loudest action of all. After all, SOGIE-based discrimination cannot be treated as an isolated issue. LGBTQ+ community members’ experiences of oppression are compounded by their relative position in the socioeconomic hierarchy. By underscoring the interconnection of our struggles can we truly amplify and strengthen our calls to fix them, leaving legislators with no other choice but to heed the groundswell of public pressure. 

All means must be exhausted. For one, Pride Marches and other public gatherings of the community can be staged as avenues for the collective expression of dissent. By banding progressive organizations and civil society groups together, a grand coalition can ensure that the calls for SOGIE equality and other causes are campaigned for consistently. 

With a strong grassroots campaign and progressive coalition, the SOGIE bill might just be passed after two and a half decades in the making. Empty promises must not placate the fight; it must continue, both up to when the SOGIE bill is finally approved and until the LGBTQ+ community is fully emancipated. ●

First published in the June 19, 2024 print edition of the Collegian