A new Social Weather Stations (SWS) poll indicates that there is still a long way before a majority of Filipinos change their attitudes toward LGBTQ+ civil unions, but the long-running campaign for equality seems to have been making small, but steady strides in Philippine society.
The SWS survey of 1,800 voting-age Filipinos conducted in January showed that 49% would not vote for candidates who support LGBTQ+ civil unions, while only 34% said they would vote for candidates who back this policy, and 15% said this has no effect on their voting preference.
While it’s still a bleak outlook for civil unions for people with diverse SOGIESC, some advocates see this as an improvement from the last survey on LGBTQ+ civil unions also conducted by SWS back in 2018.
In the March 2018 poll of 1,200 adults nationwide, 61% of Filipinos said they oppose any legislation that will make LGBTQ+ civil unions legal, a mere 22% said they supported it, and the remaining 16% were undecided.
Thysz Estrada — chairperson of PANTAY, which lobbies for LGBTQ+ policies and legislation — told Mamser that the newest survey results remind advocates of the “challenges we still face in advancing equality” but also indicate that “more Filipinos are opening their hearts and minds to the reality that LGBTQ+ Filipinos deserve legal recognition and protection.”
No measure to legalize civil unions between LGBTQ+ couples have gotten past both the House’s and the Senate’s plenary, although some lawmakers have been trying to get it through the legislative mill.
At the House of Representatives, House Bill No. 1015, authored by BH Party-list Rep. Bernadette Herrera, seeks to recognize civil partnerships between people of diverse SOGIESC and hurdled the Committee on Population and Family Relations in March 2023.
No plenary action has been taken on it so far.
Even if the Marcos administration has created a “special committee” on LGBTQ+ people, it still has not indicated that it will prioritize the passage of legislation that will – at the very least – protect queer people from discrimination.
The lack of national laws for LGBTQ+ people is in stark contrast to the purported undercurrent of support for them among Filipinos.
A 2023 survey by SWS on the perceptions of Filipinos for gays and lesbians showed that 79% agreed that they are “just as trustworthy as any other Filipino,” while 73% said they “have contributed a lot to the progress of our society."
A decade before that, SWS reported that only 67% viewed gays and lesbians as trustworthy and only 54% said they contributed to society.
“Change does not happen overnight, but history has shown that progress is inevitable when people come together for what is fair and just,” Estrada said. - Edited by Jonathan de Santos
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