Mindanao has most hate crimes vs lesbians: group

THE Philippine Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered (LGBT) Hate Crime Watch said Mindanao is the deadliest place for lesbians, as half of the hate crimes against them since 1996 happened there.

Data show six of 12 lesbians killed in hate crimes were in Mindanao. Three of those hate crimes were done in Davao, researchers Marlon Lacsamana and Reighben Labilles said.

The National Capital Region, meanwhile, is the most dangerous place for LGBTs.

Of 61 hate crimes against gays recorded by the researchers, 28 were reported in NCR. Quezon City had the most, with 12, followed by nine in Manila.

There have also been more transgendered and bisexual Filipinos killed in NCR since 1996, many of them found with multiple stab wounds.

Cebu has had seven reported incidents of hate crimes against LGBTs.

By June this year, 28 LGBT Filipinos were killed compared to 29 murdered in 2010. The LGBT Hate Crime Watch research records 103 hate crimes that resulted in death since 1996.

"The brutalities done to the murdered LGBT Filipinos are also suggestive that they were victims of hate crime. Thirty-six of the victims were stabbed multiple times. Twenty of them died of gunshots. Six were tortured before they were killed. Others were raped, or killed with a blunt object, or suffocated, or dismembered, or burned alive," The group said.

Lawmakers from Gabriela party-list on Sunday expressed alarm over a perceived rise in hate crimes against LGBT Filipinos.

Gabriela Party-List Representatives Luzviminda Ilagan and Emmi De
Jesus said the crimes indicate "prejudice or hate on the part of the assailants."

“From an average of 10 murders between 1996 and 2008, the killings rose to 12 in 2009, 26 in 2010 and 27 in the first six months of the current year,” Ilagan said.

Ilagan said Winton Lou Ynion, an openly gay professor at the University of the East, was stabbed 40 times by an unknown assailant in 2009.

She also cited the case of a trial judge in Laoag City who was "found lying in a pool of his own blood with his head almost decapitated and semen found in his anus."

Ilagan and De Jesus have filed a resolution to have the House committee on justice hold an investigation on hate crimes against members of the LGBT community and to come up with legislation that will penalize those hate crimes. (Jonathan de Santos/Sunnex)