Rainbow Conversations

The most controversial part came from the questions raised by Prof. Gary Dowsett of Latrobe University in Melbourne. To sum up the presentations and discussions during the Rainbow Conversations, a human rights conference held from January 28-31, 2008 in conjunction with the first Asia-Pacific Outgames, Prof. Dowsett asked why words like activism and oppression were conspicuously absent in the language that we use. We resorted, instead, to words like advocacy, which implies working within the system to push for reforms, and homophobia, a psychosocial attitude, a type of fear.

And if we indeed learned anything from the Rainbow Conversations, a gathering of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ) from Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, Singapore, India and the Philippines to talk about the situation of LGBTIQ individuals and communities in the region and the struggle for equality, it is this: we are not facing a mere phobia, we are facing oppression, a systematic exclusion of LGBTIQs and their persecution. And we can’t afford to be mere advocates working within the system, we have to be activists resisting the status quo and imagining a different world.

Filipinos abroad

You don’t know what it means to be Filipino until you’ve met Filipinos abroad. Our sense of hospitality is amplified abroad: we cook improvised sinigang, with lemons replacing tamarind, to feed fellow Filipinos, even if they are virtually strangers. We once met a Filipina in a northernmost part of Sweden, and she invited some of us to do our laundry in her home. We don’t let go easily of our faith as well. We troop to and fill up Catholic churches abroad not only to fulfill religious obligations but also to satisfy our desire to gossip.

Airports are fascinating laboratories of our diasporic quirks. In a short lay over in Brisbane, and due to the airport’s frustratingly disorganized state, I met a Filipina mother who, with tons of bags and two kids, was also struggling to find the Qantas flight to Melbourne. It turned out that we have to transfer to the domestic airport, which was about a few minutes away by train from the international airport. Taking the train, however, meant that we might miss our flight, so we decided to get a cab instead. I helped her with her luggage while checking in, and she paid for the cab. Nifty. But it turned out that she didn’t have enough Australian dollars, and I hadn’t had my money changed yet, so she gave the driver an additional 500 pesos. He politely refused, and took whatever Ozzie money she had.

The meeting was still pretty charming at that point, and her kids – one was five years old, the other was three – were really cute. Then she became seriously inquisitive, a term that only Filipinos could ever justify. Indians are argumentative, but inquisitiveness is a patented Filipino trait.

“May asawa ka na?” she asked. Brutal, straight to the point.