By Catherine S Valente/Manila Times
A Malacanang official yesterday said it is up to Congress to consider discussing the issue on legalising same-sex marriage in the Philippines.
Deputy presidential spokesman Abigail Valte said that while President Benigno Aquino “wants everyone treated equally,” legalising same-sex marriages would need congressional action.
“We leave it to Congress for that discussion,” Valte said over the government radio station Radyo ng Bayan. Valte said there have been conflicting views on the process of legalising same-sex marriage in the country.
“Some legal experts are of the view that you need to change the Constitution to be able to allow same sex marriages; some say that you don’t, that you just need a regular legislation to be able to incorporate it in our laws,” she said.
The US Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling on Friday, handed down its decision to legalize same-sex marriage in all of its 50 states.
Reacting to the US ruling, the head of the Catholic Church in the country said the Church will maintain its teachings on marriage.
Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas, who is also president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, however assured the LGBT (lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders) community there will be no discrimination against them by the Church.
“The Church continues to maintain what it has always taught. Marriage is a permanent union of man and woman, in the complementarity of the sexes and the mutual fulfilment that the union of a man and a woman bring into the loftiness of the matrimonial bond. If there is an undeniable difference between man and woman, there is also an undeniable difference between the permanent union of a man and a woman,” Villegas said
“We will continue to teach the sons and daughters of the Church that marriage, transformed by Lord Jesus and by His Church into a sacrament is a means by which the Lord encounters his people and is an indissoluble bond of man and woman,” he added.
Participants hold up umbrellas painted in rainbow colours and slogans during a gay pride march in Manila yesterday.
