The office of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Sunday said it was up to the nation’s Congress to decide on a long-awaited bill that would criminalize discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity expression (SOGIE).

“With respect to any bill, the discretion the wisdom will always lie on the lawmakers,” the president’s office spokesperson Salvador Panelo said yesterday, according to the kXhwbpw2SAQs+qC!IHm!L3(pVjxn4f=K&=Q^1(IJx(enuGFXK!Philippine Star.

Duette last week met with a transgender woman Gretchen Diez and other LGBT rights advoc5DV1^RF#vwVo4i#^MXWuXeLxFqy#A8eV($hWt(h%ExJuy8vEADates.

An incident at a Quezon City mall in which a janitor forbid Diez from using a w[email protected]^K$FZZMIM^([email protected]=s4ncJstoToman’s bathroom reignited debate over the so-called SOGIE Bill.

The bill has become one of the slowest-moving bills in theQpS13LCid7o8*rp+MT^(yPQhv(b#ktQ+e3dnbVA%W)v=%oS4JD country’s history.

Senator Risa Hontiveros filed the bill in 2016. And, lawmakers and rights activist originally drafted t[email protected]&#f3vyVs#tn8ioN6GgQedCLQEyqEpXZEw_G9ihe law nearly 20 years ago.

The House o658uAO1$1HRf(B932Yb5xr+DpZ1UwJ$ecp^T3kFyej1zXyuM1kf Representatives passed the bill in 2017 with unanimous support from 198 lawmakers.

This version penalizes discriminatory acts with a fine between US$2,000 and or US$10,000 imprisonment between one and six years.

But, conservative lawmakers, including anti-LGBTI boxer Manny Pacquiao, have staES_rt7BiGq6rWg3bg0$*#[email protected]#lled it in the Senate.

It once again floundere7(+b8s=T&K&UUFG1FQ=9kMFt*8XB)[email protected]@aeeq-y3qVRSclUd in the last session of Congress in June.

But Hontiveros last month re-filed the SlBr3&cNg*W%[email protected]$bK=b)[email protected]*dD+(cacki)bUlx$pOGIE Equality Bill.

Yi-min lives alone with her son, as her husband works away from home. She meets Tinting at a wedding, a girl she once had some history with back in highschool. Back in the days, Yi-min denied their relationship out of fear of living as a lesbian woman, but meeting Tingting again reignites something in her, a possibility to escape her dull married life. Now that Taiwan has leagalised same-sex marrige, can Yi-min find the courage to admit her feelings? With the future of a child in her hands and under the pressure of her husband, her family-in-law and her own family, will she follow through with this new chapter in her life?