LGBT awardees named

On his personal initiative, award-winning host and King of Talk Boy Abunda initiated the 1st Boy Abunda LGBT Awards, or  BALA. Operational support came from Ms Bemz Benedito, who is, hands down, the most positive and proactive transgender woman in the land. Bemz is the managing director of Make Your Nanay Proud Foundation Inc., which Boy set up to honor the mothers of our country, and their many contributions of love and caring for the motherland.

In alphabetical order, the awardees are as follows, with their respective citations from the 1st Boy Abunda LGBT Awards. Atty. Venir Cuyco is awarded for his visionary passion for the recognition of LGBT rights as the founder of UP Babaylan, the first LGBT student organization, and Lagablab, the earliest LGBT organization in the country formed to push for the passage of the Anti-Discrimination Bill in Congress. His enduring spirit and tireless work for the community deserves acknowledgment and merit. 

I remember that Venir, along with Jack Hernandez, Malu Marin and I met for three whole months every Wednesday night to write what would become the first LGBT Anti-Discrimination Bill in the whole of Asia.

Dr. J. Neil Garcia of the State University’s department of English and Comparative Literature, is likewise being honored as a champion of LGBTs in Philippine literature and the academe. His oeuvre, the anthology series Ladlad, which I co-edited with him, bravely proclaimed the love that dared to speak its name – in three brazen editions. Neil also wrote a masterful dissertation which became a book, as well as several compilations of poetry and essays. His body of work is an historic first in Philippine literature.

Christian Bryle Leano is being cited for his work as a student leader and advocate. As a campus influencer and a role model, he motivates his fellow students. He promotes LGBT advocacy in the schools and to the millennial generation, while espousing excellence in his studies as an LGBT.

Kristine Madrigal, on the other hand, gets the vote for advancing the voice of the transPinays through organized action. Together with four others, she was instrumental in the founding of TAO, the TransPinay of Antipolo Organization. She also actively engaged the community in Transvisibility, a platform that provides education and service to marginalized groups even outside the LGBT sector.

I got the award “for his tireless dedication and continuous fight for LGBT representation in Congress. His efforts have engendered the recognition of Ladlad Party-list, which CNN has cited as the first and only LGBT political party in the world.” While the LGBT political parties in Europe are allied with the Green Party and those in the United States fall under the Democratic Party, Ladlad Party-list has chosen to stand on its own two feet.

Poet and feminist Aida Santos won the award for her passion and dedication to promote lesbian and women’s rights. As a veteran development worker and poet, she has been instrumental in elevating her community’s awareness of gender-based violence, and in shaping young minds to find and proclaim their pride through their lesbian voices.

John L. Silva was cited for being a Filipino writer, arts and culture savant, blogger and modernist vanguard who celebrates, asserts, defends and writes about LGBT issues and same-sex love and partnership in the country.

Jose Mari Viceral, or Vice Ganda to his millions of fans, gains yet another award for being a visible LGBT superstar in several multimedia platforms, creating very strong awareness/presence for the LGBT community through his various performances, whether on television, stage, and cinema. I have met Vice and seen his various films where he manages to give voice and visibility to the LGBT experience, in scenes that strongly show empathy for our voices that used to languish on the margins.

Singer, theater and film actress Monique Wilson brings home the award for bravely defending the LGBT community with her stature as a world-renowned artist. She brought attention to the plight of the community, and she has been actively advancing issues that matter to the LGBTs.

The controversial and certainly pioneering group Pro-Gay, or the Progressive Organization of Gays in the Philippines, has been there in the last 20 years, helping other LGBT groups organize and gain formal recognition.

It is hard to run and manage an LGBT lifestyle magazine, but Team Mag continues with its work. With the courage of its conviction, it faces the odds in publishing content that mirrors the lives and concerns of LGBT people in the country. It defies the challenges of a cutthroat industry that continues to sidestep the LGBT presence.

Outrage Magazine also won the award for being a brave and trustworthy online source of LGBT stories, editorials, and opinions in the Philippines. It has become a virtual archive, a repository of various narratives in the social media era, standing up to issues that matter to the LGBT community. For being the leading mouthpiece of the LGBT people and its struggles in the digital world, publishing personal stories, political and social commentaries through its online publication, this magazine has surely stood the test of time.

Global shoe brand Nike brings home the BALA Award for breaking the molds of patriarchal, consumerist-centered corporate mentality and making a bold statement in favor of the LGBT community. Nike terminated their endorsement of boxer Manny Pacquiao after he made homophobic remarks that said that LGBTs are worse than animals. Nike also bolsters LGBT advocacy by highlighting gender equality in their ads and actively supporting LGBT Pride through special merchandise.

The Philippine Educational Theater Association, or PETA, gets the nod of Boy Abunda for championing the LGBT causes through their plays and artistic productions that question the status quo, educate the audience, and create critical conversations about LGBT issues. Its remarkable plays Hanggang Dito na Lamang at Maraming Salamat (a full-length play in 1974 written by Orlando Nadres) and Care Divas (a musical in 2011) bravely tackle sexual orientation, gender identity and expression or SOGIE.

Our deepest thanks go to Dr. Boy Abunda and the brilliant Ms. Bemz Benedito for this award, reminding us that our work through the years, done at great cost to our time and even to our pockets, were not done in vain.

Comments can be sent to [email protected] My gay books in National Bookstore include Happy Na, Gay Pa; Riverrun: A Novel, and The Best of Ladlad, co-edited with J. Neil Garcia.