House bill seeks to provide help desks for LGBTs in police stations

MANILA, Philippines—Not only women should have a special desk in every police station, lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders must have their own too, a lawmaker proposed.

Laguna third district representative Sol Aragones authored House Bill 2571 securing a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) desk in all police stations to address “sexually oriented crimes.”

“These reports highlight the very real and pressing problem confronting the LGBT community in the Philippines,” Aragones said in a statement.

She said the primary purpose of the bill was for LGBT members of society, who are “victims of hate,” to have a place to seek assistance.

In a news release Saturday by the House of Representatives, the congresswoman said HB 2571 was intending to amend Republic Act 8551 or the Philippine National Police (PNP) Reform and Reorganization Act of 1998, creating Women’s desks in all police stations nationwide.

Desks for female victims were established to “administer and attend to cases involving crimes against chastity, sexual harassment, abuses committed against women and children and other similar offenses.”

“There can be no true and meaningful democracy if we continue to systematically oppress the LGBT sector,” she said.

The bill requires PNP lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender’s desks in all police stations throughout the country to administer and attend to cases involving crimes against chastity, sexual harassment, hate crimes, abuses committed against women, children, and members of the LGBT community and other similar offenses.

Citing the report on the Status of LGBT Rights in the Philippines, Submission to the Human Rights Council for the Universal Periodic Review 13th Session, Aragones said that the United Nations (UN) itself receives various complaints or human rights violations against LGBT in the Philippines.

Last August, Albay representative Edcel “Grex” Lagman filed the HB 2352 penalizing marital infidelity committed with gay lovers.

The neophyte lawmaker said he supported the “gender equality and rights” demanded by the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community but that the concept should not be limited to the “positive side of things.”