Bataan Rep. Geraldine Roman, chairperson of the House Committee on Women and Gender Equality on Thursday lamented the slow progress of the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Expression Equality (SOGIE) Bill in the Senate.
Roman said Congress should not have missed the chance of enacting a piece of legislation aimed at protecting every person, regardless of their gender identity, from any form of discrimination, and it seems to not be a priority in the Senate.
“It is sad that there is still no certainty as to when the Senate version of the SOGIE bill will be passed,” Roman said.
More than two decades ago, former Akbayan party-list Representative Etta Rosales and the late Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago pushed for the first version of the SOGIE bill.
The bill was revived in the 17th Congress, where it was approved on third and final reading at the House of Representatives and reached the Senate through Roman’s strong advocacy for its passage. But the efforts to have the measure enacted had gone to waste.
Currently, the Senate Committee on Rules holds the SOGIE bill, where Senate Majority Leader Joel Villanueva is the committee chairman who first issued a statement on November 17, 2016, in support of the Anti-Discrimination Bill as support for the rights of the LGBTQ sector.
The SOGIE Equality Bill has been pending since it was filed in the Senate in December 2022, but it is already being processed by the technical working group of the House committee.
Roman lamented that the SOGIE bill had not been included in the pieces of legislation that had been approved by the Senate when Congress adjourns for its Lenten recess on March 24.
Some of the latest proposals that have been approved by the Senate on the second and third reading include the strengthening and protection of the country’s cultural heritage, the one town, one product bill, and the no permit, no exam prohibition bill; and that thr SOGIE bill was not in the list.
