As I write, typhoon Falcon has been raging for hours, pounding and pouring on the humble huts, shanties, and homes in Luzon. Everyone is on the look-out for the rising waters in the streets, while some have evacuated from their homes for fear of being hit as hard as with Ondoy’s temper. The typhoon season has indeed arrived.
But as Falcon rages, I am fortunate enough to have a roof over my head, electricity in the barangay where I live and time when I can catch up with reading whatever is on the internet. It is then that I realized that the typhoon season here in the Philippines coincides with the commemoration of the Stonewall uprising in June ‘69 in New York. The rage, passions, and temperament of such significant event have not been lost, even in the damp, cold streets in the Philippines.
Stonewall spurred the awakening of the collective consciousness of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community to act as a force, out and proud of their colors, challenging the structures of the state that silences, obliterates and negates their existence. Since then, it has been considered as a rallying remembrance of the struggle of LGBT movements throughout the world. In 1994, Progay and the Metropolitan Community Church in the Philippines held the first Pride march in the Philippines and in the whole of Asia. Since then, it has been celebrated as a season not only of pride and love, but more so as season for celebration of the struggle of LGBTs in the country for basic human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Day by day, LGBTs are being deprived of our right to exist. While it is hard enough to find a decent job with living wages, we are being twice deprived of work because we are considered parasites or not qualified or inept. On one hand, those of us who have jobs are twice bludgeoned by unfair labor conditions, unbelievably low and dirt poor wages, and sexual harassment. While it is hard enough to avail of education in our perpetually commercialized educational system, we are being twice deprived of our right to education because they said our morals can contaminate the rest of the studentry and the academe. While it is hard enough to access affordable and appropriate medical and health services in a country whose budget for its people’s health is less than a peso per capita, we are being twice deprived of our right to health because they said the government cannot answer for our promiscuity. While it is hard enough to speak and be represented in our communities and in government, we are being twice deprived of this voice because they said we are innately immorals and we are an abomination to humankind, and therefore we cannot help build a nation. While it is hard enough to build relationships and sustain families in a society that tears families apart, we are being twice deprived of our right to love, to forge relationships, and nurture children. While it is hard enough to live, we are being twice deprived of life because they said, while brutally maiming, killing and raping us with impunity, we have no right to live.
Pray tell us, what choices do we have? We can live, behind the shadows and within our closets, ignoring the painful realities of life in silence. We can die, silently fading into and succumbing to the brutalities we have endured. But in many times in our history, we choose to struggle, and we struggle together, and we weave our strengths with the fine threads of several movements whose members, like us, are being denied of their right to exist.
Tis a season of raging typhoons (Falcon, please leave now so the Baguio Pride Network can march in a more somber weather), and tis a season of Pride. Pride in our numbers, pride in our solidarity with the oppressed peoples, pride in collectively embracing and claiming the rights denied us. Now, more than ever, we take pride in our colorful and beautiful, albeit arduous, struggle against discrimination, patriarchy and the roots of homophobia in this society. Happy pride everyone!
A Woman's Work 