Ladlad slams attacks against gays

BE open minded towards the transgender community in Cebu.

Professor Danton Remoto, founder and chairperson emeritus of Ladlad party-list, made this call to Cebuanos after last month’s drive-by pellet shooting attacks in Cebu City leaving two homosexual men injured in Cebu City.

Remoto said that most Filipinos including Cebuanos were considered “conservative” in their attitude towards  the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

He encouraged the Cebuanos to be more liberal in their attitude to the LGBT community.

“Here, they are still seen as different and it takes a while for the mind to change,” Remoto said yesterday.

Remoto and other representatives from Ladlad visited Cebu yesterday to condemn the hate crimes done on two transgenders after they were shot with pellet guns in barangay Labangon last month.

According to  Philippines LBGT Rights Watch, more than 100 gays were killed due to “hate crimes” since 1996.

Remoto said when a person would inflict violence to other people or a particular group, in this case, due to his or her “difference” on sexual preference, then that would be a hate crime towards LBGT community.

“We visited here to make a statement condemning these kind of violations in Cebu,” lawyer Germain Trittle Leonin, who was with Ladlad.

Talk show host Boy Abunda, senior party adviser of Ladlad, said there’s still “a long way to go” in the fight for LBGT’s rights.

He said the attacks must stop and never happen again. /Reporter Candeze R. Mongaya