01/06/2026
๐๐ฒ๐๐ผ๐ป๐ฑ ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐ฅ๐ฎ๐ถ๐ป๐ฏ๐ผ๐: ๐ช๐ต๐ ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ถ๐น๐ถ๐ฝ๐ถ๐ป๐ผ ๐๐๐๐ง๐ค+ ๐ฆ๐๐ฟ๐๐ด๐ด๐น๐ฒ ๐ถ๐ ๐ฎ ๐ฃ๐ฒ๐ผ๐ฝ๐น๐ฒโ๐ ๐ฆ๐๐ฟ๐๐ด๐ด๐น๐ฒ
Pride Month in the Philippines is rooted in resistance, not just celebration. This year marks 32 years since the first Pride March in the country (1994's Stonewall Manila, the first in the Asia-Pacific). Yet, basic protections remain stalled, it has now been 26 years since the first version of the SOGIESC Equality Bill was filed with no progress. This delay proves that the struggles of the LGBTQ+ community cannot be separated from the struggles of the broader Filipino people.
Our history debunks the conservative claim that being q***r is a "modern Western construct". In pre-colonial times, cis and trans women held immense spiritual power as babaylan, catalonan, and asog. When Spanish colonizers demonized and slaughtered them, these q***r ancestors fled to the mountains and became among the first to take up arms against foreign rule.
This history of resistance repeated itself during Martial Law, when state forces directed intense vitriol against the community. Countless q***r Filipinos went underground to fight the fascist regime, including Melanie Santos, a bisexual woman who co-founded the anti-imperialist Katipunan ng Demokratikong Pilipino (KDP).
Today, this vulnerability to larger systems of oppression continues. We see it in the tragic 2014 murder of transgender woman Jennifer Laude by US Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton and the absolute pardon later granted to him, showing how q***r lives are compromised by foreign military relations.
Against a patriarchal society and modern-day imperialist pressures from global superpowers like the US and China, the Filipino LGBTQ+ community stands firm. Pride is a continuation of the militant struggle of the babaylan. True q***r liberation will only be achieved when the entire nation is free.
Writeup by Ashley Kasilag
Illustration by Don Aliv Lubuguin
