FEATURE: Love Wins, Will It?

CEBU, Philippines - It was Friday midnight. Two average-looking men, assumingly in their 20s, took a jeepney bound for downtown Cebu City. They sat closely in the middle portion of the vehicle, facing sideways. In an unprecedented move, the man in a tight sando wrapped his arms around his companion. They talked audibly, giggled, and held hands as the jeepney cruised along Go-rordo Avenue, Escario Street, and Osmeña Boulevard.

While other passengers looked at the couple bewildered, the two men simply didn’t care. They found rare solace at a time the city starts to sleep.

Not alone

“We both have high respect for same sex couples who go out in the open, who are not ashamed or afraid of the judgmental society. We admire these kinds of people,” says law student Carlo, 22, a bisexual.

Carlo is committed to his three-year relationship with Orlando, 23, also a bisexual.

The two chose to withhold their real names for this story but are actually open about their relationship to their families and friends who have since given them courage to make their relationship public. 

Werly Jumao-as, an accounts officer, is also open about her relationship with her lesbian live-in partner, Carmel Gabronino. They have been together for five years and two months. Werly says love shall not be kept secret and she and her partner hope for more same-sex couples to become happy and carefree.

Carmel says they acknowledge the prevailing discrimination against same-sex relationships, but says they choose to simply shrug it off and extend patience to people who are “narrow-minded.”

What matters more, Werly says, is that the people who really know them accept them and love them.

“I usually do not care. I personally refuse to get affected. We are loved, supported and accepted by people who matters. And that’s what matters,” she says.

Religion without effect

As LGBT couples like Carlo and Orlando and Werly and Carmel become open about their relationships, they are generally unbothered by a predominantly Catholic Cebu, the so-called cradle of Christianity in the Philippines and in Asia. Just last month, Cebu hosted the week-long International Eucharistic Congress.

For Werly, a lapsed Catholic, her God does not force her to live miserably. Believing in the same God as heterosexuals, she sees that what God really wants is to make every person happy without judgment or reservation.

Her partner, Carmel, says: “Whether they like it or not, they can’t do anything about it. People nowadays are starting to realize that ‘love knows no gender’ is actually true.”

Carlo, also a non-practicing Catholic, says, “I have long given up on the bigoted teachings of the Church. I just do what I do. My moral compass is my faith and for as long as I do not harm others, I’m good.”

Reception

Magdalena Robinson, a transwoman who heads the three-year-old Cebu United Rainbow LGBTI Sector (CURLS), describes Cebu as having a tolerant attitude towards lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) relationships. One proof is the passage of the LGBT Code of Mandaue City, something that she says highlights the success of local policies in countering discrimination against members of the LGBT community.

The Code in Mandaue aims to recognize people of diverse sexual orientation, gender identity and expression but Magdalena says the challenge lies in the implementation, pointing out that the conservative view of an ideal relationship is that of heterosexual couples.

Scorn and ridicule of all forms, she says, are still prevalent here.

“The [LGBT] relationships are not deemed illegal; thus, they endure all the challenges of their love,” she adds. 

Bisdak Pride’s Executive Director, Roxanne Omega-Doron, sees that the two male lovers in the jeepney is rather an exceptional case. He agrees with Robinson, saying that openness remains to be reserved to heterosexual couples who can do almost anything in public and private.

While he acknowledges an emerging “pink” market with non-heterosexuals as significant bulk of consumers, Roxanne sees that heterosexual relationships are highly reinforced and supported by commerce.

He cites: “For example, Valentine’s cards sold in the market often reflects heterosexual couples, the love between a man and a woman.”

He also reflects that the growing openness of LGBT relationships is expected, as it is rooted from the continuous changing social landscape in the city such as the availability of technologies that provide opportunity for LGBTs to delight and express themselves.

“The sharing of experiences, stand, perspectives and viewpoint became so fast that we tend to copy the theories and practices of the first world and apply to our local condition, a backward, pre-industrial, agrarian country,” Roxanne expounds.

Time for same-sex marriage?

The petition filed before the Supreme Court last May to nullify two provisions of the Family Code limiting marriage between a man and a woman remains pending.

Petitioner lawyer Jesus Nicardo Falcis III has replied to several interventions by conservative lawyers. The Solicitor General has also asked for more time to comment on his petition.

Aside from grounding the petition based on the constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection of laws, Falcis asserts that limiting marriage to heterosexual couples violates Sec. 3(1), Art. XV of the Constitution, providing that: “The right of spouses to found a family in accordance with their religious convictions and the demands of responsible parenthood.”

“It doesn’t matter if people are ready for it or not. The Constitution protects the rights of people especially minorities whether or not the majority are ready or accepting,” he says.

Both Carlo and Orlando agree to the petition as legalizing LGBT marriages will afford the same kind of protection that heterosexual couples enjoy from the institution of marriage.

“We know of some gay couples who don’t believe in marriage and that’s fine because there are also hetero couples who don’t believe in marriage. Well, our point is, marriage should be an option for any kind of couple,” Carlo says.

Although Carmel supports legalizing same-sex marriages to enjoy marital and parental rights, her partner Werly sees it unnecessary. “We are committed and bound by how we feel towards each other. Marriage is tradition. I am so over tradition,” she says.

Roxanne applauds current developments such as local government initiatives in Cebu and Mandaue cities to end LGBT discrimination and the petition before the High Court, but thinks that winning against the patriarchal structure takes time.

A mass movement including the non-heterosexual sector linking with the broader masses of people such as the women sector, he says, will annihilate patriarchy and masochism in all social structures.

“The movement for genuine gender equality will determine the status of what we are fighting and advocating for. A movement will never move if those who espoused or supported it are not united in understanding the social and historical conditions of violence towards the LGBT community,” he adds.

*The author is a Mass Communication graduate from the University of the Philippines - Cebu. A former broadcast journalist, he identifies himself as a youth and LGBT rights advocate. He is currently a marketing copywriter and taking up his Juris Doctor degree. (FREEMAN)