The last Pride Parade I went to was in 2019. It is funny how anything before 2020 feels like a lifetime ago with the Covid Pandemic seemingly putting our lives at a standstill.
So with a sudden announcement that Metro Manila Pride 2022 was happening I was weighing if I wanted to join. While being vaccinated gives some level of security but with rising numbers again it feels scary to be around crowds.
Yet I wanted to be part of something big and lend my support to the LGBTQIA community as an ally.
It was a good thing that my company was organizing some people to join and it was the final push for me to join.
I didn't know anyone but I took this as an opportunity to get to know more people outside of my account. A way to build your network and widen my circle.
I really like how they named the event. Atin ang Kulayaan. Atin means Ours and Kulayaan is a play on the words Kulay meaning color and Kalayaan as Freedom. So together it means This is Our Freedom
We arrived early and went to one of the booths that one of the members had set up to provide free illustration boards and paints to encourage people to create placards.
It was a combination of political in nature, to witty and a shout for basic rights.
I gotta say this is one of my favorite and was half tempted to ask for it. To provide some context the NTF-ELCAC stands for the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict. A government agency that is supposedly created to end communist but has rather been behaving as a McCartney like entity that has red tagged critics and activist painting everyone as a communist and responsible for the deaths of people who are fighting for the rights of farmers, teachers, BPO workers and on the environment.
The Philippines has been recently reported as being dangerous for journalists, environmental protectors and lawyers for the poor.
So yeah the NTF-ELCAC can just choke.
You gotta love a fellow ReVeLuv whenever you see them and yes to Red Velvet no to Red tagging.
It was fun assisting some of the people to make their placards.
Then finally it was time to line up and march for Pride. It was fun seeing all different organizations come together and show some solidarity.
All sorts of banners, flags and placards were being raised. While it looked like it was going to rain but thankfully the weather was kind enough to not on our parade.
We were asked to line up 4 people in a row and the crowd was massive as they took their place and ready to be counted.
It had a festive atmosphere with people happily greeting each other Happy Pride and as we marched on outside people gawked. In some ways there is still some hesitation for a lot of people to accept Pride because of how deeply rooted religious beliefs are and there was a time that anything out of the gender norms was frowned at. Pulpits were used to condemn it and a controversial forced conversion was practiced.
As the movement has gained more traction and support through the years it still is a far way from being able to achieve one of the main things that both the community and its allies has been fighting for.
The SOGIE Equality bill has been languishing in both the Senate and Congress. We even had one idiotic Senator grand stand and say he will never allow it to pass. Good thing when he ran as Vice-President this last election he lost. Well we all lost actually but that is another story.
Pride is a protest. We will never forget the Stonewall protests that gave birth to this movement and we will continue to fight to bring rights to the LGBTQIA community.
See you on the next Pride Parade.
