Hate crimes vs LGBT alarm Gabriela party-list

Lawmakers from Gabriela part-list on Sunday expressed alarm over a perceived rise in hate crimes against lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and the transgendered (LGBT).



Gabriela Party-List Representatives Luzviminda Ilagan and Emmi De Jesus said the crimes -- around five incidents per month since January, according to an LGBT advocacy group –- seemed to 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 Philippines, 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.

By Jonathan de Santos