The Rainbow Blog Philippines

I am happy to announce the start of EDUC8, LIBER8, CELEBR8: The 8-Campus Rainbow Tour, a free symposium on LGBT human rights (see poster above). It will have its first stop at the College of Saint Benilde (CSB) on 29 September 2010. Below is a write-up of this historical initiative. TrueColors Publishing Inc., the makers of Ketchup Magazine , the only Lesbian Gay Bisexual & Transgender (LGBT) magazine in the Philippines in keeping with its thrust to promote social awareness of LGBT issues, proudly presents Educ8, Liber8, Celebr8: The 8-Campus Rainbow Tour. This Rainbow Tour brings together noted leaders of the LGBT community to conduct a free symposium targeting students in 8 colleges and universities in the Metro Manila area in an 8-month period from September 2010 to April 2011. The symposium, which covers various issues including LGBT Politics, Spirituality and Sexuality, Gender Identity and Human Rights & Media Activism, is designed as a “crash course” on human rights and ...

YOU are all invited to come! On June 2, 2010, Wednesday, ANG LADLAD PARTYLIST and THE LOUNGE give you PINK PRIDE PARTY ! Out & Proud LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transexual) Night Hosted by: Royal Hotness KRIS LOYOLA, Event Promoter PRINCE VINNY and TV HOST COOLAI CONCEPCION. Feat HOUSE ANTHEMS by Dj Jenil Party Starts @ 9pm. Door charge P200 with drink inclusive. This is a fund-raising event. THE LOUNGE is located at 2nd Floor Bellagio Square, Sct Fuentebella cor Tomas Morato, Quezon City

Ang Ladlad will hold the National Consultation Meeting on February 27, 2010 (Saturday) at 9:00AM to 5:00PM in the University Hotel of UP Diliman to elect our new set of officers and party list representatives. We might be able to run for Party List elections in May 2010, let us show the power of the Pink Vote. As per Chair Danton Remoto, we need all hands on deck. The campaign season begins on February 9. Please help us in your respective towns, cities, provinces and regions. Online campaigning will certainly help. And also provide us with leads on people and companies we can tap for our fund-raising. We will need money, food for the campaign, office supplies, volunteers and endorsements. In line with this, we are calling all existing members to renew their membership and interested individuals/ parties/groups to sign up as new members not later than February 20, 2010 to be eligible to nominate and vote. The Membership Committee will collect an annual fee of Php100 for professionals an...

The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) has just denied the petition for accreditation of Ang Ladlad Partylist to be able to take part in the 2010 elections and represent Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Filipinos in Congress. The COMELEC, in its 7-page decision, claims that Ang Ladlad advocates sexual immorality and thus the COMELEC is protecting the youth from “moral and spiritual degradation” by denying Ang Ladlad’s petition. In light of this COMELEC decision, Ang Ladlad is calling all its members, allies, friends and supporters to a general assembly on 14 November 2009, Saturday, 9am-12nn at the Seminar Room 108 of the University Hotel, UP Diliman . For directions, call the University Hotel at landline 926.1975/926.1953 or mobile 0920.471.0111. It’s time to get up and stand up for our rights!

Last weekend I had the privilege of witnessing two beautiful things in action: youth and love. On Saturday, along with other officers of Ang Ladlad , the national organization of LGBT Filipinos, I braved the rains and went to the University Hotel inside the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman campus for Ang Ladlad's Meet & Greet with a youth social network, OneBacardi. OneBacardi is a group of gay and bisexual youth who set up mainly cultural and socio-civic activities aimed at bringing the local LGBT community together. They currently have almost 100 members from the Metro Manila area alone (see pic below). When I met them last Saturday, my heart just melted because they lived up to their claim of being a bold, brilliant and beautiful group of guys. They were all so good-looking and charming! For some time now, OneBacardi, through its officers led by current head, Angelo "Gelo" Camaya, had been expressing their desire to partner with Ang Ladlad so that both or...

Ang Ladlad , the national organization of Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Filipinos, is holding a Meet and Greet with the bold, brilliant and beautiful clan, OneBacardi* (see their logo above). WHEN : 12 September 2009, Saturday WHERE : Seminar Room 104, University Hotel, UP Diliman, Quezon City WHAT TIME : 6:30-10:30 pm This event is part of Ang Ladlad’s Membership Renewal Campaign in the National Capital Region (NCR) and is open to all bona fide Ang Ladlad members who want to renew their membership for the year. Come one! Come all! And let’s meet One Bacardi*!!! _________________________________________________________ *ONEBACARDI is a dynamic social network organization whose aim is to strengthen the members’ awareness and involvement in LGBT issues, and promote unity and camaraderie within the entire LGBT community. They envision a community of socially mature individuals who are free-spirited, well-rounded and socially responsible. They provide their members a ready an...

I just realized, based on my experience last month, that I am an overly-scheduled person. On top of work, I am also working on my Master's thesis at the University of the Philippines, attending Spanish classes every Saturday, running three times a week and going to the gym for the same number of days. Add to these doing advocacy work for the LGBT community. My life will probably look more hectic compared to the average person. No matter, I like it this way. I enjoy being busy and I hate being idle although I do feel sometimes that there are just too many things to do in so little time. Last month alone I was in several activities involving the LGBT community. First I was a speaker at the Alternative Classroom Learning Experience (ACLE) forum on coming out (see pic above) of the University of the Philippines (UP) Babaylan, an LGBT students rights advocacy group in the UP system. I shared my coming out experience with the mainly student audience. I told them that in the past because ...

Below is the call for writer and translator of the Yogyakarta Principles (YyP) Project of Ang Ladlad , the national organization of LGBT Filipinos. One of Ang Ladlad's campaigns for the year is to popularize the Yogyakarta Principles , an international document that applies human rights standards to issues pertaining to sexual orientation and gender identity and expression. After launching the YyP in the 2008 Manila Pride March and releasing a primer which I wrote and my friend Sass laid-out, now Ang Ladlad plans to translate the YyP into Filipino to make it more accessible to more people who want to know about LGBT human rights. The YyP translation is envisioned to contain cases of LGBT discrimination to demonstrate the 28 principles of the YyP. This is going to be an important document in LGBT civil rights advocacy in the Philippines and if you are or anyone you know is interested to be a part of it, please read the call below and submit the requirements to the email address spe...