SOGIE BILL | Villanueva moves to delay debates on equality measure

February 8, 2023 , 09:15 PM

By Clarist Zablan

(February 8, 2023) – The Senate majority leader and his evangelist-lawmaker father on Wednesday made moves to delay deliberations on a measure that sought to ban discrimination based on gender and sexuality in both houses of the Congress.

In a plenary session, Senator Risa Hontiveros questioned why the sexual orientation, gender identity and expression (SOGIE) equality bill was not allowed to reach the plenary after it was already approved by her committee on women, family relations and gender equality.

Hontiveros said Joel Villanueva has obtained 19 signatures to remand the committee report on the measure to the Committee on Rules, which the majority leader chairs, because a number of pastors still wanted to debate on the bill further.

“I have no illusions that the bill will sail through this chamber quickly, and I am ready to defend it on the floor as a Sponsor defends any bill – with arguments and logic. What I was not ready for was for this bill to be in this kind of suspension or limbo,” said Hontiveros.

Last month, some lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) advocates and groups accused Villanueva of asking pastors to lobby against the SOGIE equality bill.

Villanueva said they wanted to further study the measure as some of their colleagues suggested a “holistic” approach on the anti-discrimination measure.

“This has to get the approval and the concurrence of our colleagues,” he said. “We wanted to find out who else is not invited, who else would want to speak.”

In the Lower House, Villanueva’s father, CIBAC Partylist Congressman Eddie Villanueva opposed the hearing of the SOGIE equality bill in the women and gender equality panel, which he said was “illegal” and a form of “clear forum-shopping.”

He said the hearing violated House rules because the committee on human rights, where he sits as vice-chairman, had already started discussions on a broader anti-discrimination measure.

“This issue must be resolved first, because this will set a bad precedent that can be abused in the future, and the leadership of 19th Congress might be tainted in the pages of history,” the elder Villanueva told his colleagues in the women and gender equality panel.

Bataan Congresswoman Geraldine Roman, who chairs the panel, said House Majority Leader Mannix Dalipe has already told her that the rules committee maintained the referral of the SOGIE equality bill under her committee. The elder Villanueva walked out of the hearing afterwards.

“Therefore, the tackling of the said bills will remain within the committee on women ang gender equality. May I suggest that the arguments you have presented to us be presented to the rules committee? This is not the right forum,” Roman told Villanueva.

Various LGBTQ+ advocacy groups have urged lawmakers not to delay the passage of the SOGIE equality measure. The bill has met setbacks since it was first filed by Akbayan Party-list and the late Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago in 2004 due to opposition from religious groups in the Roman Catholic-majority country.

(MM | With reports from Marie Ann Los Baños and Camille Samonte, News5)

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