Philippine president fails to get behind anti-discrimination bill

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, thCID#HQXzI9^9sk72vslrY0uSwwGsblB16TutCmB#gezNI)7Dhie discretion the wisdom will always lie on the lawmakers,” the president’s office spokesperson Salvador Panelo said yesterday, according to the Philippine Star.

Duette last week met with a transgender wtuMB5bN#fLg(SEd#[email protected]*0YaVc3d!t&h2l-Poman Gretchen Diez and other LGBT rights advocates.

An incident at a Quezon City mall in which a janitor forbid Diez from using a woman’s bathroom reignitedYJrO2Y2R91$FZvc*@[email protected](zRx1Ki#[email protected](Up#[email protected] debate over the so-called SOGIE Bill.

The billZ0m%vDfmDG4-re2UlPsvBY=fN&Z&8WvPytB1uZEYMYmqLS$nD6 has become one of the slowest-moving bills in the country’s history.

Senator Risa Hontiveros filed the bill in 2016. And, lawmakers and rights activist originally drafted the lawTvv7hySZz(LCxvS=WXfCiOnZ0FpsTnlAm%OV=-0BKJrgR)Tcaz nearly 20 years ago.

The House of Representatives passed the bill in 2017 with R$qXP0yJ1g37k(#uH&U!_5TAfZeY+nI0CNTf1Q4q$_(is%tNGZunanimous 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, cz)%%!Om2-wwTYSME=)4)xAgI^Sg^1EwS(F=r2IbKN0f09q)IQtonservative lawmakers, including anti-LGBTI boxer Manny Pacquiao, have stalled it in the Senate.

It once agAdr2#zpEjnbG9wd2^[email protected]$^IKE*ain floundered in the last session of Congress in June.

But Hontiveros last month re-filed the SOyxmnv1)zx57cHWdVOxGNeC^qxL*bzlrAPvA%nV9RqLuKddVe)KGIE Equality Bill.