The Rainbow Blog Philippines

Finally, the World Outgames 2009 is over and I am back home safe. I am still nursing my jet lag though. I flew into Manila on Monday afternoon, August 3, and I have been very sleepy and lethargic since. Every night beginning Monday, I have been waking up at around 3 am. I would then be up for an hour or so (sometimes more) until sleep beckons again. The last week has been really hellish. I have not slept well and have been waking up bedraggled and a little haggard so I hope to overcome this within the week. As I promised in my last post, I will talk about the 2nd International Conference on LGBT Human Rights. The conference was the main reason why I went to Copenhagen. It was one of three tracks that the Outgames offered to its participants, the other two being Sports and Culture. The conference was scheduled from July 27-29 and those three days covered 6 plenary sessions (one in the morning and one in the afternoon of each day) and more than 100 workshops dealing with nine conferenc...

In 2008, Copenhagen was ranked as the Number 1 Most Livable City in the World. To this day, it is living up to its reputation as the host of the World Outgames 2009 . Last Saturday, July 25, was the Opening Ceremony of the Outgames. All the delegates to the Sports, Culture and Human Rights tracks from the different countries of the world trooped to the city square for the Parade of Nations and the Opening Program. For this purpose, I brought a modernized traditional Filipino garment, the patadyong (see pic above). The patadyong is just a piece of colorful woven fabric that Filipino women from Panay Island wear as a wrap-around. Since, I was the only one in traditional Filipino wear, the members of our delegation, composed of members of the Filipino community in Copenhagen and others from other parts of the world (see pic below), decided for me to be the muse of the delegation, allowing me kindly to walk in front of them as the front liner. The Parade of Nations and the Opening Ceremo...