Biased and prejudiced! That’s what the Commission on Elections is, according to Chief Justice Puno, when he concurred in the Supreme Court decision allowing gay rights group Ang Ladlad to campaign for a seat in Congress. (Of course, he could not have been referring to the division headed by Commissioner Goyo Larrazabal, who had sagacity enough to take the opposing view against their less-enlightened members.)

Well, tell us something we don’t know, especially after that spectacularly idiotic decision where the Comelec told us that gay people were horrible examples for children. Commissioner Ferrer, in particular, was supremely judgmental when he said Ladlad tolerated immorality and offended religious beliefs. (Natch, he was referring to his own beliefs.) Justice Puno, in fact, called the Comelec a “religious court” and “morality police.”

But that’s all water under the bridge now (so to speak, although there will always be miasma attached to those Commissioners). The Supreme Court has just granted the petition of Ladlad in a wonderful, almost-unanimous decision. (The Star has it at 13-2; the Inquirer has it 12-3. I kept counting the names in the Star’s list, but I only have it at 12-2. What gives?)

Newly-appointed Justice Mariano del Castillo, a former professor in Ateneo de Manila Law School, wrote the ground breaking decision, although if I were to take a pick, I’d much rather go with Puno, who seems to have been more reactionary in recognizing gay rights. 

Click to read entire decision.

Del Castillo takes pains to note that the Supreme Court wasn’t exactly endorsing gay rights, they were just recognizing that Ladlad had satisfied the requirements for accreditation as a political party. In his words, they weren’t out there to herald a golden age for gay rights. (That’s all right, your honor, let the professionals do it.)

The Chief Justice, however, goes beyond this, and says gay people are entitled to “heightened constitutional protection,” which is a key phrase most constitutional law practitioners would jump at and commit murder for just to get. Puno recognizes as a fact (again, a burden that’s normally difficult to establish in litigation, and a point where many lawyers in overseas jurisdictions stumble on) that gay people have suffered “pervasive” and “severe” discrimination. Because of these findings, he concludes that gay people constitute and form a marginalized sector.

Chief Justice Puno thus pushes the envelope much further than the majority. I think the task of rights groups now would be to get this minority view accepted by the majority, and at the same time, be vigilant against the dissent of the other minority, written by Justice Renato Corona. 

We all have to remember that Corona is well on the road towards becoming the next Chief Justice. He’s already submitted his application, and in fact, he’s indicated that he will not wait for the next President to be elected, and that he will accept an appointment even if the appointing authority is the dearly unloved President Arroyo.

In his dissent, Corona said Ang Ladlad doesn’t come from the marginalized or under-represented sectors referred to in the Constitution, which created the party list system. He couldn’t compare gay people with the peasants, laborers, fisherfolk and farmers’ sectors. (Well, of course not, they so lack the glamour and panache normally infused within the core of gaydom! What Corona should have done is compare them to those other sectors like women and professionals!) Yes, I’m being inappropriately cheeky. But, what’s important here is that Ang Ladlad has to be wary if and when Corona does take the Supreme Court helm. 

I bugged Danton Remoto, Ladlad’s head, to give me a nice quote the very day the ruling came out. He gave me this dry comment about how the decision gives flesh and blood to the bill of rights and the church-state separation. Nothing as cute as the interview he gave the Inquirer, where he said they were “happy and gay because the Supreme Court recognized…that we cannot be excluded from participating based on religious grounds.” 

Nonetheless, there is much to do after this great news. As Remoto says, spread the word. Ang Ladlad is #89 in the ballot. 

The column is published with permission from the author.