SENATE President Francis “Chiz” Escudero yesterday said the proposed Comprehensive Anti-Discrimination Act has a better chance of being approved in the Senate than the controversial Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression and Sex Characteristic (SOGIESC) Act, which proponents have repeatedly been pushing in both houses of Congress for years.
SOGIESC stands for sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics.
Escudero said that unless the proponents soften their hard stance against accepting amendments to the current proposed version of the SOGIESC bill, the chance that it will be accepted and approved by majority of senators is low.
“Sa pagkakaalam ko may mga panukalang amendment dito sa bill na ito bago ito tuluyang maipasa (As far as I know, there are proposed amendments to this bill before it is finally approved),” Escudero said in an interview at the Senate.
“Unless the proponents of the SOGIE bill accede to some amendments, it will continue to face rough sailing in the Senate,” he also said, adding: “The anti-discrimination bill, I believe, has a better chance of passing this year.”
He likewise said: “Sa kwentuhan din bago pa man ako naging tagapangulo ng Senado, mas malaki ang tiyansa na pumasa ang anti-discrimination kumpara sa SOGIESC bill unless nga ang mga amendments ay mapagbibigyan (In conversations even before I became the Senate President, the anti-discrimination bill has a greater chance of passing compared to the SOGIESC bill unless the amendments are accommodated).”
Escudero was among the 18 senators who signed a report on the SOGIESC bill prepared by the Senate Committees on Women and Finance in December 2022.
Escudero made the remarks after the United Nations Population Fund urged Congress to pass the anti-discrimination bill to ensure that all people are equal regardless of their sexual orientation, among others.
Escudero said the SOGIESC bill is different from the Comprehensive Anti-Discrimination measure being pushed in Congress.
The anti-discrimination bill seeks equal protection for everyone. It prohibits prohibits discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, race, religion or belief, sex or gender or sexual orientation, language, disability, educational attainment, and others.
The SOGIESC bill espouses the same fundamental rights, but also specifically seeks to promote human dignity and address all forms of discrimination and violence committed against lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender, queers, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQA+).
Senate deputy minority leader Risa Hontiveros, the main proponent of the SOGIESC bill, expressed hope that the new Senate leadership will support the passage of the controversial measure.
She said 19 senators have signed the committee report on the SOGIESC Bill on December 2022 but but it remains pending on second reading until today.
“That should speak to its acceptability across all aisle. I have asked the majority leader (Sen. Francis Tolentino) to look into the committee report which has remained pending in the Committee on Rules and he has promised to do so,” Hontiveros said.
Former majority leader Joel Villanueva, who was the former chairperson of the Committee on Rules, explained that the SOGIEC bill has been pending at the Committee on Rules since majority of senators “wanted to talk it over” as there were supposedly some serious concerns aired by various sectors who were not invited during the committee hearings.
“Most of us actually are talking about it, that it has to be holistic, it has to be anti-discriminatory not just on one particular sector at the expense of another sector. Yan lang naman ang pinakamabigat na concern dito eh. Hindi puedeng bigyan ng mas matibay o mas malalim o malaking pabor ang isang sektor at the expense of the other kasi unconstitutional din yun (Most of us are actually taking about it, we want it to be holistic, it has to be anti-discriminatory not on just one particular sector at the expense of another sector. That’s the only contentious concern here. It cannot be that we will favor a sector at the expense of another sector because that is unconstitutional),” Villanuev said in a press conference at the Senate.
