Sotto: ‘No chance’ of passing SOGIE bill in Senate

MANILA, Philippines — There is “no chance” that the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression (SOGIE) Equality bill will pass in the Senate, Senate President Vicente Sotto III said.

Sotto said Senate could pass an anti-discrimination bill but not one that is focused only on members of the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) community.

“Anti-discrimination on persons, pwede. Pero focused on gays, which the SOGIE bill is, and religious and academic freedom impeded plus smuggling of same sex marriage? No chance!,” the Senate leader said in a text message to reporters on Wednesday.

The bill seeks to criminalize discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity and expression.

Senator Risa Hontiveros earlier urged her colleagues to immediately pass the SOGIE bill after a transgender woman, Gretchen Diez, was barred from using a women’s toilet room in a mall in Quezon City.

The bill was passed at the House of Representatives last 2017, but its counterpart version at the Senate languished at the period of interpellation.

Hontiveros refiled the bill in the 18th Congress. /muf