House approves SOGIE equality bill on 3rd and final reading

Garnering 198 approvals, with zero vetoes and abstentions, the house passed the bill that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression or the SOGIE equality bill on its third and final reading.

The SOGIE Equality Bill protects people from the following discriminatory acts:

• Denial of access to public services
• Including SOGIE as a criteria for hiring or dismissal of workers
• Refusing admission or expelling students in schools based on SOGIE
• Imposing disciplinary actions that are harsher than customary due to the student’s SOGIE
• Refusing or revoking accreditation of organizations based on the SOGIE of members
• Denying access to health services
• Denying the application for professional licenses and similar documents
• Denying access to establishments, facilities, and services open to the general public
• Forcing a person to undertake any medical or psychological examination to determine or alter one’s SOGIE
• Harassment committed by persons involved in law enforcement
• Publishing information intended to “out” or reveal the SOGIE of a person without consent
• Engaging in public speech which intends to shame or ridicule LGBTQ+ persons
• Subjecting persons to harassment motivated by the offenders bias against the offended party’s SOGIE, which may come in the form of any medium, including telecommunications and social media
• Subjecting any person to gender profiling
• Preventing a child under parental authority from expressing one’s SOGIE by inflicting or threatening to inflict bodily or physical harm or by causing mental or emotional suffering

Moreover, Dinagat Island Representative Kaka Bag-ao, the current bill’s primary author, clarified that the bill’s goal is only to guard the basic rights of citizens and it would not add special rights to members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community.

(DAILY NEWS ROUND UP FOR 09/ 22 / 17)