The Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and
[8] Other senators such as Win Gatchalian,
Expression Equality Bill (SOGIE; Tagalog
pronunciation: ['sɔdʒi] SO-jee), also known as the Anti-
Discrimination Bill (ADB), is a proposed legislation
of the Congress of the Philippines. It is intended to
prevent various economic and public accommodation-
related acts of discrimination against people based on
their sexual orientation, gender identity or
expression.[1] The current versions of the bill are
championed by Kaka Bag-ao, Geraldine Roman, and
Tom Villarin in the House of Representatives, and
Risa Hontiveros in the Senate. The version in the
House of Representative passed its third reading
most recently on September 20, 2017, but died in the
Senate.[2] It has been refiled for the 18th Congress.
The bill was first filed in Congress in 2000 by then-
senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago and then-Akbayan
party-list Representative Etta Rosales, in which the
bill passed 3rd reading in the House but stalled in the
Senate. Similar measures were filed by other senators
in the 15th and 16th congresses which failed to see
progress.[3] The bill was re-filed by Defensor-Santiago
in every congressional period in the Senate until the
end of her last term in 2016. The counterpart bill in the
House was also filed continuously by the
representatives of Akbayan party-list.
17th Congress
In 2017, House Bill No. 4982, sponsored by Dinagat
Islands Rep. Kaka Bag-ao, who has been the
principal author of the measure since her first term,
Bataan Rep. Geraldine Roman, Akbayan Party-List
Rep. Tom Villarin, and several others, was approved
on third and final reading for the first time since 2001[4]
with 198 members of the House of Representatives
voting for the bill and none opposing it, a historic pro-
LGBT move from the House of Representatives.[5]
The counterpart bill in the Senate, filed by Senator
Risa Hontiveros (the first Akbayan senator), was in
the period of interpolations by May 2018. It is backed
by Senators Loren Legarda, Grace Poe, Nancy Binay,
Franklin Drilon, Bam Aquino, Chiz Escudero, Ralph
Recto, Sonny Angara, JV Ejercito, Francis Pangilinan,
Juan Miguel Zubiri, and Leila de Lima, although de
Lima is barred from voting on the bill as she is
currently in police custody.[6][7] It was opposed by
Senators Tito Sotto, Manny Pacquiao, Cynthia Villar,
and Joel Villanueva (who signed up as a co-author of
the bill).
Koko Pimentel, Antonio Trillanes, Panfilo Lacson, and
Richard J. Gordon have not yet expressed their
support or rejection of the bill. Senator Trillanes is
currently facing cases that may put him in jail, which
may make him ineligible to vote for the bill like senator
De Lima if ever he is arrested. Additionally, Alan Peter
Cayetano and Gregorio Honasan no longer have
voting rights on Senate measures as they declined to
be part of the presidential cabinet.[9] All in all, out of the
existing 24 Senate seats: 12 seats support and can
vote on the bill; 1 seat supports but cannot vote on the
bill (although the number may rise to 2); 4 seats
oppose and can vote on the bill; 5 seats can vote on
the bill but have not yet given their positions on it
(although the number may be reduced to 5); and 2
seats are de facto vacated.[9] For a bill to pass the
Senate, it needs a vote of 50% (12) of the body, plus
one (1) vote for a total of thirteen (13) votes. The
SOGIE Equality Bill currently is supported by 12 seats
that are allowed to vote on the measure.[10]
The bill is also supported by the Catholic student
governments of University of the Philippines-Diliman
(UPD), Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU), De La
Salle University(DLSU)-Manila, De La Salle - College
of St. Benilde (CSB), Far Eastern University (FEU),
Miriam College (MC), St. Scholastica's College
(SSC)-Manila and San Beda University (SBU). The
longest running LGBT student organization UP
Babaylan has also been supporting the bill ever since
it was first filed.,[11] as well as known celebrities and
icons such as Heart Evangelista, Bianca Gonzalez,
Iza Calzado, Charo Santos-Concio, Dingdong Dantes,
Joey Mead King, Divine Lee, Karen Davila, Chot
Reyes, Tootsy Angara, BJ Pascual, Samantha Lee,
Christine Bersola-Babao, Rajo Laurel, Tim Yap, Anne
Curtis, Mari Jasmine, Laureen Uy, Pia Wurtzbach,
Lorenzo Tañada III, Vice Ganda, Arnold Van Opstal,
and Chel Diokno.[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]
In March 2018, a small group of Christians protested
at the Senate against the SOGIE bill by calling the
proposed legislation an 'abomination', adding that
homosexuality is allegedly a 'sin' citing that their 'hate'
is allegedly credible because it is supposedly written
in the Bible and that viewing that identifying as part of
the LGBT community is a supposedly a 'lifestyle'.[21]
The group also claimed that the bill relates to same-
sex marriage, which is not found anywhere within the
bill. Senators Villanueva, Gatchalian, and Villar
[22]
spoke against same-sex marriage after the protest.[23]
In May 2018, senator Tito Sotto, who opposes the
SOGIE bill, became the new Senate President. In an
interview, Sotto was asked on the bill's passage, to
which he responded, "Not in this congress."[9]
lawmakers failed to tackle the bill in this session of the
Senate of the Philippines. The Senate version of the
bill was first filed in August 11, 2016. It was sponsored
by Risa Hontiveros in December 14 of the same year.
The bill has become one of the slowest-moving bills in
the country’s history. The passed house version of the
bill would have penalised discrimination with a fine of
not less than ₱100,000 but not more than ₱500,000,
or imprisonment of not less than one year but not
more than six years or both, depending on the court's
decision. [31][31] however, she said the bill had gained
new allies and wider acceptance among policy

In July 2018, various high-profile celebrities rallied for makers and the public and that she is confident the

the passage of the SOGIE bill. They also called out bill will pass in the next Congress.[32] The bill was

senators Sotto, Pacquiao, and Villanueva to end the archived, and the bill must again be refiled in the 18th

debates and pass the proposed legislation.[13] In Congress, starting over the one to three-year process

August 2018, on the height of the bill's postponed of enactment again.[30]

debates, various discrimination events against the 18th Congress

Filipino LGBT community surfaced, causing public
In early July 2019, Senator Sonny Angara introduced
calling for the passage of the SOGIE Equality Bill in
a new proposal to Congress. "Any form of
the Senate.[24][25] Numerous influential personalities,
discrimination threatens social stability and economic
including political allies of the three senators who
progress in the Philippines, making it imperative that
oppose the bill, sided with the calls to pass the
discrimination—or any act that establishes, promotes
landmark proposal.[17][24][7]
and perpetuates standing inequalities and disregards
In January 2019, fake news and chain mails[26] the right to 'equality of treatment' afforded by the 1987
claiming that there are 'satanic'[27] and 'same-sex Constitution—be reduced", Angara argued. The
marriage' provisions in the SOGIE bill began measure would prohibit unfair discrimination based
circulating, a move to dislodge the bill's progress.[28][29] on, among other categories, sex, sexual orientation
In May 2019, the SOGIE Equality Bill officially became and gender identity and expression.[33]
the longest-running bill under the Senate interpellation
period in Philippine history. Supporters of the bill have
remarked that the prolonged interpellation was
intended by the dissenters to block the passage of the
historic anti-discrimination bill.[30] The bill's principal
author and sponsor in the Senate, senator Risa
Hontiveros, has again called on her Senate
colleagues to formally close the interpellation period,
so that the bill can finally be subject for amendments
and voting.[30] In June 2019, with the end of the
session of the 17th Congress, the SOGIE Equality Bill
prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual
orientation, gender identity or expression -- after the