An appeal to President Noy: Murder is murder

This Tuesday, December 21, 2010, the UN General Assembly will vote on a proposal to protect lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders from extrajudicial killings and other unlawful executions. The vote will specifically be on the restoration of sexual orientation in the text of the Resolution on Extrajudicial, Summary, and Arbitrary Executions.

The resolution had always recognized that LGBTs need protection from grave human rights abuses, especially the use of death penalty and other inhuman treatment or penalties to penalize homosexuality. Such abuses are common in countries where man to man sex is penalized, or prejudice based on sexual orientation and gender identity is tolerated or even encouraged by the authorities. The relevant provision in the resolution urges the State “to investigate promptly and thoroughly all killings, including… all killings committed for any discriminatory reason, including sexual orientation”.

(Additional materials: The report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Killings and the statement of the Vatican condemning the murder and abuse of homosexuals. Click here to download IGLHRC‘s backgrounder on the issue.).

However, last month, several States lobbied to remove the provision on sexual orientation, and they won. Seventy nine (79) States voted for the removal of the item from the resolution, while seventy (70) voted for retention. Forty-three (43) States abstained.

The removal is an assault against our dignity. It means that while the resolution condemns extrajudicial killings, it silent on abuses committed against LGBTs. It condones violence against and the persecution of LGBTs. It implies that some murders and killings are culturally sensitive, and that the international community has no business meddling in how other States treat lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders.

The Philippines abstained in this crucial vote. It reportedly claimed that the Philippines has no position on the issue because the country has no standing policy against discrimination or abuse on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Never mind if the Constitution clearly affirms human dignity for all persons. Never mind if the constitutional fabric of our democracy promotes and protects human rights. Never mind if this resolution would protect Filipinos abroad, some of whom are part of the LGBT community, who may be living or working in countries hostile to homosexuality

The vote this Tuesday would hopefully correct this grave error. You can help push the Philippine government to make a stand on the issue, and stand for what is right. Help us tell the government that murder is murder, and no person should be killed, tortured, or abused because of his or her sexual orientation or gender identity.

Send your letters of appeal to the following:

H.E. President Benigno S. Aquino III

Malacañang Palace

Manila, NCR

 

 

C/o  Hon. Julia Abad

Presidential Chief of Staff

10/F PMS Building

Arlegui Street, San Miguel Manila 1005

T: 63(2) 733-6650; 734-2094;

734-3971-86 Loc./ext. 132

F: 63(2) 734-2105

*To maximize social media, post your appeal on the Facebook page of President Aquino

H.E. Libran Nuevas Cabactulan

Ambassador  and Permanent Representative

Permanent Mission of the Philippines to the United Nations

Tel:(212)764-1300 | Fax:(212)840-8602 |

E-mail: newyork.pm@dfa.gov.ph, newyorkpm@gmail.com

*Make sure to CC Anna Hernando, the diplomat who handles the human rights portfolio in the mission: annahernando@yahoo.com

Several letters of appeal have already been forwarded to the Philippine Mission, and former Akbayan Rep. Risa Hontiveros and Akbayan Rep. Kaka Bag-ao, along with other advocates, sent this Letter of Appeal to President Benigno Aquino III. Send yours now.

Four out of five

When health experts warned that the face of HIV/AIDS in the Philippines is changing, I didn’t expect that it’ll be all too familiar. They said that it is on the rise, that it doubled from 2007 to 2009, that most of the new cases have been acquired through homosexual and bisexual contact, and that the prevalence in some cities in the country have reached epidemic proportions already.

Last month, five new cases of HIV infection were reported everyday, four of which are considered MSM, or men who have sex with other men. A decade ago, Sarah Jane Salazar, Dolzura Cortez, and a member of PinoyPlus who spoke in a safer sex training that we had – those were only faces of people living with HIV/AIDS that I knew.

Four out of five. A friend passed away due to AIDS-related complications a few weeks ago. He was about my age, and tested positive last January. He didn’t want anyone to know, so he went to a province to see an albularyo. A matter between life and death, but he chose quackery over treatment that could have extended his life.

And it was a decision that leaves you dry – you get it, you understand why he did it and what drove him to it, and yet it’s confounding. It’s maddeningly confounding. It’s like when you hear of that story about mothers who wash used condoms so they can be re-used. Or that kid in Indonesia who is happily smoking a cigarette.  Maddeningly incomprehensible, and exasperatingly explainable.

His family said that he died of pneumonia. Most of his friends were told that it was dengue that did him.

Four out of five. I’ve been giving out  the contact details of a support group for Filipinos living with HIV/AIDS – before to friends of friends, but now to close friends. HIV is not a death sentence, and I am lucky to be surrounded by close friends who share that message.

I don’t mean to sow panic, because panic combined with lack of awareness would only push more to quackery. You don’t case studies or numbers to understand that – just listen to a frothing Bishop.

But I want you to know that the trend is alarming. And the first step that we all should take is to acknowledge the writing on the wall.

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Go to TLF Share’s Facebook page to get updates on HIV/AIDS among men who have sex with men in the Philippines.

Our own Stonewall

The calls usually come in at around 1 or 2 am. Sometimes its from a friend, or an anonymous text message, a missed call from an unlisted number. Soon enough the stories would fit the narrative – a gay establishment got raided, dozens were arrested. A litany of laws and ordinances were supposedly violated, from fire hazard ordinances, anti-prostitution laws, to archaic policies against vagrancy or public scandal. More information would trickle in – where the arrested men were brought, how many were being detained, who got hurt, or whether the raid was covered by the media.

If you’re lucky, some kindred souls who happen to be lawyers would still be up and about, and are willing to accompany you to the precinct, or at the very least give legal advice or assistance. If you’re not, you end up dealing with the police on your own. You just need to ask the right questions, negotiate calmly, and hope that once the police realize that they are being monitored, they’d relent and let everyone go. The most difficult part isn’t hiding your own anxiety and the thumping in your heart, or even the fear that you might do or say something that would worsen the situation; it is actually mustering the self-control that you need to contain your anger at the sight of abuse of power and degradation.

Curing homosexuality: tips from Pro-life

There are many ways to skin a cat. If you have “same-sex attraction”, here are some tips on how to cure that ungodly desire:

1. Cover the naked body of the crucified Jesus. He’s good-looking, compassionate, very much into equality and therefore pro-gay, and sinew. It really gives the wrong impression.

2. Ban products that are known to cause homosexuality. Prohibit the sale and use of fabric softeners; a friend claims that they literally make us soft. Stop the use of fertilizers. It is quite known that Masagana rice led to the spread of homosexuality in rural areas.

3. Target the role models. No more Ate Shawie, Ate Vi, Manilyn Reynes, and Coney Reyes. Scrap animation shows that encourage homosexuality – teletubbies, Flying House, Superbook, Superfriends, Superman and Master Showman. Actually, ban Kuya Germs.

Pedophilia!

Over lunch last Friday, a friend told us of a recent case of a 21-year old Manila-based homosexual who picked up an 8-year old boy in Cebu.  The incident reached the  authorities, the homosexual was arrested, and he is now detained somewhere in Cebu.

So there you go. This is the kind of story that gives traction to the ‘pedophilia card’ used by many anti-LGBT groups and individuals that oppose LGBT rights. In many instances, whether in a congressional hearing or a training, I find myself repeating one truth about pedophilia – that it is NOT a homosexual trait, and that it is fundamentally about power. The pedophile believes that he can abuse the victim because he is in a position to do so and because he thinks he can get away with it.

The House of Gloria

Last Monday, Rep. Walden Bello of Akbayan Party delivered a scathing speech condemning former President GMA for high corruption. He said that corruption was the signature of the Arroyo government. He condemned the allies and cohorts of the previous government, whose acts he called porcine. He said that GMA should be brought to the National Penitentiary, and that she doesn’t deserve to be in Congress. (Download the speech here)

The speech was delivered shortly after former President GMA had her oath-taking before the members of Congress as the representative of the 4th district of Pampanga.

In the House of Gloria, what Walden did cannot be tolerated. Walden was interrupted several times during his speech, with one veteran representative saying that it was taking too long. Another representative – remember him, his name is Rep. Marcoleta of Alagad – complained that Walden, a professor and a public intellectual, was tackling too many issues, and it was too much for his brain to handle.

The homophobes lost, but…

Rep. Abante during the Anti-Discrimination Bill hearing

Here’s some good news: three candidates from the conservative bloc lost in the senatorial and congressional elections. Bienvenido Abante, an incumbent representative in District 6, Manila City, lost to his rival Sandy Ocampo, a former congresswoman and currently Manila’s deputy mayor. Atty. Jo Imbong, legal counsel of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, ran for senator under the Catholic church-backed Ang Kapatiran Party, is among the bottom-dwellers in the senatorial race. Another pro-life bet, ex-senator Kit Tatad, has been unable to surpass the Top 20 benchmark.

Rep. Abante, as Chair of the House Committee on Human Rights, blocked the passage of a bill penalizing discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders. Last year, Rep. Abante filed a bill criminalizing same-sex marriage and prohibiting co-habitation among between partners of the same sex.

He also opposed the enactment of the RH Bill, a controversial measure that provides access to reproductive health information and contraceptives.

Atty. Imbong, on the other hand, is the CBCP lobbyist that has rabidly campaigned against the RH Bill and Anti-Discrimination Bill in most congressional hearings. A “pro-life” advocate, Atty. Imbong has labeled the above bills as part of the Church-opposed DEATH bills, a cluster of measures promoting divorce, euthanasia, abortion, total reproductive health, and homosexuality (same-sex marriage).

Greasy campaign trail – ‘L’ is for Lechon, ‘V’ is for Vetsin

Elections is fiesta season in the Philippines. And if we truly are what we eat, then Filipino politicians are aptly symbolized by pork and grease.

The culinary theme is not green, yellow or orange, it’s cholesterol. Everything is deep-fried, served with fat and layered with oil. When politicians speak of the vote-rich L to L corridor, they actually mean liempo to lechon.

Grease is a main-stay in Philippine politics. Political affiliations shift – expect the entire Lakas machinery to go to Villar (ok, some are LP-bound) – but what  isn’t going to change is grease. Once, in a sortie in Tarlac, the whole LP entourage went to the ancestral home of the Aquinos for lunch, which consisted of tocino, homemade corned beef swimming in oil, and fried hito. My face is the epicenter of oiliness, but these dishes make my face seem fresh and healthy.

If it isn’t homemade grease, it’s fastfood oil – with MSG. If the L sign means ‘Lechon’, then V is vetsin (or Vitter Villitants, but that’s another story). When meals are not hosted by local politicians, we get our regular dose of fat and MSG from Jollibee or McDonalds. Breakfast at McDonalds in SLEX, late-night post-sortie dinner in KFC NLEX. Gone were the days when you carry bags of local pasalubongs at the airport; I actually found myself carrying in Davao City’s airport McDo take-outs that we bought from a drive-thru in Gen San – and it didn’t feel absurd.

In a solo sortie in HK, what started as a silly wish – eating dimsum filled with broth – ended up becoming an obsession as the day began transforming into a classic monster. There was the usual high-energy activities, the small crises that required troubleshooting, coordinating with Manila for other events – everything was Multitasking 2.0. Eating dimsum became a rallying point, my own liberation day, and maybe a cry for help. But the chance to go to a dimsum house didn’t come. I remember having breakfast, lunch didn’t take place (there was some time for snacks, but that was it), and soon after, Risa and I were at the airport, tired, each nursing a cup of warm drink from Starbucks, sitting quietly while waiting for our flights. Dinner was out of the question, and dimsum was, well, a figment of my own chismis.

I was tired and hungry when I finally reached home a few hours later. But the moment I stepped inside my apartment, next day’s sortie was already there, waiting. I opened my laptop, googled McDonald’s, and, by opening a new document, started a new day.

(Epic fail for the that one-entry a day challenge. No excuses, but hey, it’s 15 days till election day. Next blog should be about preparing for debates. I’m blogging from Legaspi City, and we’re waiting for Ms. Kris for a sortie in Legaspi and Tabaco.)

The Daily Grind

24 days before D-day. If I don’t do this now, I won’t be able to do this at all.

The challenge is to blog about the campaign trail, an entry a day. I’ve told someone before that I’ve been remiss with my blogging duties because of the campaign – the hectic schedule, and the rare lulls that are oftentimes spent to catch up with errands that are left behind.

Why not blog about the campaign trail, he suggested.

He’s right. A senatorial campaign is a strange monster . You jump in, you get swallowed. I suppose writing about it would make it easier to digest.

There is more familiarity in a party-list campaign: you deal with constituents you’ve worked with, the niches are clear, and the scale follows boundaries that you have traversed in the past. You know your hooks, you’ve been there, you’ve done that, and you know the limits of the system itself. It is a known playground.

But now, the campaign trail doesn’t end. The next day and its own mob of tasks, statements, and meetings have a way of creeping from behind, without warning, an intruder that has the gall to welcome you to your own home. A week becomes a continuous, seamless loop of days. Before you sleep, no matter if its at 2 or 4 am, you need to meet your deadlines, and then wake up early so you could do some finishing touches, make the sound bite sharper, or the point more resonant.  You are completely aware that it could be for naught, especially in country where politics is a narrative of personal dramas, not of platforms or issues. So you just go ahead, praying that what you’re doing can make a dent.

I admit that there are moments when we ask ourselves why we are doing this. The party-list race is our comfort zone, and had we opted to limit ourselves in that arena, the campaign trail would unfurl with a certain predictability – the kind of messages you can and cannot deploy, the numbers you need to crunch. A party-list campaign would still be hard, but definitely not as hard as a senatorial bid.

But in the middle of the daily grind, we constantly get reminders why we are here – an old woman who handed Risa some money as contribution to her campaign; a student who professed his support, unabashedly, and delivered what is perhaps the most compelling speech about change that I’ve heard since this campaign started; the father who introduced Risa to his young girl, and started conversing with her as people went in and out of the LRT. All of these happened when we weren’t preaching to the choir, while eating in Jollibee or while in transit. It is when we are with them that I realize that we haven’t lost our moorings.

The perks of being Jules

So what does it mean to be Rep. Jules Ledesma of Negros Occidental?

As a member of the House of Representatives, he received P4.2 million a year for operational expenses, the so-called Representative’s Block Fund (RBF). Since they don’t have to report to Congress how the RBF was spent, you may actually say that it is their discretionary fund. That’s P12.6 million in one term, and that’s on top of his monthly P35,000 salary.

That’s nothing, of course, compared to unpopular pork barrel. Rep. Ledesma received at least P70 million a year for his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) and his lump sum DPWH fund for hard or infra projects. I said at least because the pork barrel that you receive depends on your proximity to the powers that be, so if you are a member of the majority there’s a huge chance that you’d get more. You may also clinch more projects through congressional insertions, which means that while the annual General Appropriations Act (the national budget) is being crafted by the Executive, you insert certain items  in the budget of government agencies. There is just an agreement between the line agency and the representative that the allocation would be released to the solon because it was included at his behest. Since it is hard to determine if Rep. Ledesma got additional porks from Madam President or if he was able to insert any items in the past three budget cycles, let us assume that he got at least P210 million for the entire term.

(Do the PDAF and the DPWH lump sum fund go directly to the solons? Not really. But they have a say on how it will be used. Corruption happens when, in the case of hard or infra projects, the solons intervene in the awarding of the project to contractors that they favor and get a kickback from the deal. Soft projects are easier to pocket, since they are usually given in cash to local government officials close the solon thru financial assistance, livelihood projects, etc. How much actually goes to corruption requires investigation, but Budget Sec. Rolando Andaya once said that as much as 40% of the pork barrel goes to the pockets of politicians. Coming from a cabinet secretary, we can say that 40% is an underestimation.)

Rep. Jules Ledesma got at least P222.6 million for this term.

If he was only present thrice for the session, then the presence of his highness in the august chamber of Congress cost taxpayers P74.2 million a day. He said that he was actually busy performing his duty in his district. FTW, mister. In the Rules of Congress, it is clear that his main duty is to legislate and attend plenary sessions.

Our hard-working solon filed three bills, all of which are local:

• HB03057 – AN ACT RESERVING CERTAIN PORTION OF PUBLIC DOMAIN AND DECLARING THE SAME ALIENABLE AND DISPOSABLE FOR TOWNSITE USE OF THE MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT OF SALVADOR BENEDICTO, PROVINCE OF NEGROS OCCIDENTAL AND FOR OTHER PURPOSE
• HB04150 – AN ACT DECLARING A PARCEL OF LAND OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN AN AGRICULTURAL LAND FOR TOWN SITE PURPOSE OF THE MUNICIPALITY OF SALVADOR BENEDICTO, PROVINCE OF NEGROS OCCIDENTAL, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES
• HB06254 – AN ACT DECLARING THE 1ST OF JULY OF EVERY YEAR A SPECIAL NONWORKING HOLIDAY IN THE CITY OF SAN CARLOS, NEGROS OCCIDENTAL IN OBSERVANCE OF THE CITY’S CHARTER DAY

Taxpayers paid him P74.2 million per bill. Expensive bills. Grab a copy, they’re probably laced with unobtanium.

There you go, the perks of being Jules. Shocked? Don’t be. After all, Rep. Jules Ledesma is just one out of many.