In a decision dated November 11, 2009, the 2nd Division of the Commission on Elections denied the application for accreditation of Ang Ladlad Party-list, a party-list of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders, on moral grounds.
The decision was obviously penned by apes.
Signed by Commissioners Nicodemo Ferrer, Lucenito Tagle, and Elias Yusoph, the resolution quoted the Bible and the Koran to claim that Ang Ladlad tolerates immorality, and therefore should not be accredited. They said practicing homosexuals are a threat to the youth.
What these statements imply is that these commissioners have been denied something fundamental when they were still kids: love. I am sure that they were never hugged.
They find it perfectly acceptable to issue a resolution – a legal document – that sounds like a pastoral letter from CBCP or a manifesto from a fundamentalist group. They were quick to cite biblical verses or lines from the Koran, but forgot a basic tenet in our Constitution: that we are all equal, regardless of who we are.
They forgot that as commissioners, they are men of law, not men of faith. That the Commission on Elections is an institution of democracy, not a temple. That, as pointed out by an activist, they swore by the Bible to uphold the constitution, not the other way around. The issue is simple: use the law to determine whether a group should be accredited or not. There are no other standards – just the law.
How can we trust the COMELEC to modernize the electoral system when the commissioners still live in the Victorian era? Be wary, because those that that been mandated to automate the elections still believe that the Earth is the center of the universe. It is said that they weed out from the voters’ list women who are as outspoken as Etta Rosales, and they use tawas to make counting machines fool-proof and fraud-free.
But wariness is not enough. This bigotry is unacceptable. So I, Jonas Bagas, gay since birth, a practicing homosexual (occasionally during weekdays, but mostly during weekends), join my fellow lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders condemning this farce. We won’t take this sitting down. I am a proud member of another LGBT-friendly party-list, AKBAYAN, and I will join Ang Ladlad in this struggle against bigotry in our ballots.
If you want to be part of this fight, then join us this Saturday, November 14, 2009, at 9 AM at the University Hotel of the University of the Philippines in Diliman, QC. We will fight back, and we will recruit more.
xfullman 