The never-ending wait

Every October, Jennifer Laude returns—not as a headline, but as a haunting of how slow justice can be for those who live outside society’s idea of being normal. Her face and name, once plastered on protesters’ placards, have become a symbol of a promise unfulfilled: that no one should have to die just to be seen.

How can we call this a democracy when the rights of some people, especially the LGBTQIA+ community, have been talked about for decades but never fully realized? Why are some freedoms always put off in a country that prides itself on being “free”?

The SOGIESC Equality Bill‘s goal is to stop people from being discriminated against for their sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or sex characteristics. Critics have called it controversial, sensitive, and divisive. 

The truth is easier. It is a fair bill. But fairness has been waiting in the halls of Congress for 25 years.

In 2000, the late Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago and Akbayan Representative Etta Rosales introduced the first Anti-Discrimination Bill. This was the start of the never-ending wait. 

That was eleven Congresses ago. Since then, the bill has been brought up for debate many times, passed the House, but never made it through the Senate.

Even though there is a lot of false information going around, the bill does not make same-sex marriage legal or make it illegal to express religious beliefs. 

Sarah Elago, a former member of the Kabataan Partylist, said that it just strengthens rights that the 1987 Constitution already protects. These aren’t “special rights.” They’re equal protection under the law, which should be a given in any real democracy.

This bill would have been replanted many times and made a forest by now if laws were plants. Instead, lawmakers keep digging it up before it can grow roots. 

The same excuses are given every time it is refiled. Some senators say they need more time to look at it. Some say there are more important things to do right now. 

A lot say it’s too divisive. But other bills, like those for pandemic measures, were passed in just a few weeks, showing that speed is possible when there is political will.

The Makabayan Bloc and Senators Risa Hontiveros, Loren Legarda, and Mark Villar filed the most recent versions of House Bill No. 5551 and Senate Bill No. 1600.

Senator Risa Hontiveros introduced the SOGIESC Equality Bill as Senate Bill 139 on July 7, 2022. Nineteen senators had signed the committee report in favor by December of that year. It looked good on paper. 

But in February 2023, the bill got stuck in a procedural deadlock after Majority Leader Joel Villanueva pushed to send it back to the Committee on Women and Gender Equality because religious groups were putting pressure on him. This made its progress a lot slower.

On May 14 and 15, 2024, the House held a full debate and vote on its version of House Bill 10176. After that, the session was put on hold, and nothing else happened before the 19th Congress ended. 

Hontiveros refiled the measure for the 20th Congress in July 2025, making it one of her top priorities. Senator Loren Legarda also filed her own version as Senate Bill 307 on July 9, 2025. Both measures are still in committee.

Geraldine Roman, a member of Congress, has also been a strong supporter of the bill. In 2017, she was a key player in getting the SOGIESC Equality Bill passed unanimously on its third reading in the House. This was a big step forward in the fight for LGBTQIA+ rights.

In the meantime, people are still being treated unfairly because this law doesn’t exist. Transgender students have been told they can’t go to school because of rules about hair length. People who are openly gay have not been hired for jobs. 

There are gaps in legal protection, as seen in the case of Gretchen Diez being turned away from a women’s restroom. Without this law, victims often have to rely on public anger or the kindness of strangers to get any kind of justice.

And long before Diez, there was Jennifer Laude.

A 26-year-old transgender woman, Laude, was brutally killed by a U.S. Marine, Joseph Pemberton, in 2014. Her death was not just a hate crime—it was a reflection of how society still treats trans lives as disposable. 

Pemberton was convicted of homicide, but the sentence was later shortened after he received a presidential pardon from former President Rodrigo Duterte in 2020, which many activists, including LGBTQIA+ and nationalist groups, condemned as a miscarriage of justice.

Yet even a decade after her death, the country that mourned her still hasn’t passed the very law that could have protected others like her.

For a lot of LGBTQIA+ Filipinos, the SOGIESC Equality Bill is not about politics. It is about staying alive. It means not being afraid of being embarrassed or turned down when you go to a job interview, a hospital, a classroom, or even a bathroom. Every year that this law isn’t in place is another year that discrimination is okay.

Young people are especially angry. Some were very young when the bill was first filed. Now that they are old enough to vote, there is still no law that protects their rights. Young activists have marched in Pride parades, set up groups in schools, and used social media to push for equality. 

They have seen the cycle happen over and over again. When the bill is filed, there is excitement; during debates, there is tension; and when Congress ends without a vote, there is heartbreak.

They ask hard questions. If lawmakers can pass laws about pandemics in just a few days, why can’t they pass laws about equality after twenty-five years? If Congress can quickly approve budget increases for itself, why not approve protections for communities that are at risk?

The hard truth is that discrimination is still a problem in politics. Some lawmakers are afraid of losing votes, upsetting religious groups, or going against the norm. 

This is when performative allyship becomes bad. Some politicians are quick to wear Pride pins, post rainbow graphics, or show up at LGBTQIA+ events when it’s time to vote. They don’t say anything when it’s time to vote for the bill.

Laws should protect the weak, not the strong, in a working democracy. The repeated delays of the SOGIESC Equality Bill say the opposite. They say that equality is not necessary and that some people are worth less than others.

It’s not just about the LGBTQIA+ community. It shows what kind of democracy the Philippines wants to be. If you keep putting off minority rights, it means that rights are privileges that can be taken away. 

Twenty-five years is already too long. How many more stories of shame and unfairness do lawmakers need to hear before they do something? How many more kids have to grow up without legal protection before things are fair?

More often than not, the fight for the SOGIESC Equality Bill is more than just a legal battle. It is a reflection of our country. A country that prides itself on freedom and promises of equality, but leaves its queer community at the margins.. 

The Philippines must determine how much longer it will wait to establish equality as the law of the land if it genuinely aspires to be a democracy.