A GROUP of senior gays recently called on the government to provide them with a residence, insisting that, as citizens, they have the right to a home for the aged exclusive for them.
The Golden Gays, which convenes its members in a makeshift home in a depressed community in Pasay City, requires a house conducive to making its members, talents still useful to society, said Mon Busa, the group’s president.
The group’s meetings in the makeshift house are disrupted when rain water drips into the interior of the house, he said.
The group had a home for over 10 years in the residence of its founder, Justo C. Justo, a newspaper columnist and Pasay councilor.
Due to its limitation to accommodate, some of them had lived in that house, others just frequented it to connect with their fellow gays.
After Justo passed away in 2012, however, his family closed the house to the group.
A 60-year-old Golden Gays member, who had nowhere to go, stayed in a barangay outpost, until a homeowner in the area offered him to stay in a makeshift house after a few months. He ekes out a living of P1,000 monthly as a street sweeper.
It has been about three years now since their former home was closed, Busa noted.
The Golden Gays realized how hard it is not to have a house for its aging members, he said.
If the group will be provided with its own home by the government, by a charitable individual or group, it will be the first of its kind in the Philippines, Busa noted.
The group does not ask for a big house, he said. All it needs is one that can accommodate 25 occupants, including three staff members, who will clean the house, cook and do the laundry.
With their own house, the senior gays will have an ease to interconnect with each other, Busa said.
“Interconnectivity” is very important for aging gays, he said. It makes them feel useful and connected to one another.
Although the Department of Social Welfare and Development has allocation for senior citizens, it does not allocate any for senior homosexuals as an exclusive group, Busa said.
It is something they feel is discriminatory to them, he said.
If they will be provided with a house, the senior gays can run it without subsidy from the government, Busa said.
They can engage in livelihood ventures, like running their own salon and employing their members in a fashion outfit and weaving bags to finance their needs, he added.
Golden Gays members can make bags that can compete in quality with products made locally and abroad, Busa said. They can turn the house into a working space to plan and carry out livelihood projects, he said.
With their earnings, they can provide their own food, and pay water, electricity and other bills, he said.
They can also source their food from charitable individuals and groups that recognize them as part of society, he added.
Currently, the group has 40 active members from Metro Manila and nearby provinces, like Bulacan and Cavite, he said. The oldest is 87 years old.
At least once a week, 25 of them dress like a woman to enliven a party, which runs from three to four hours, which includes a beauty contest.
In February the group performed at a party in Pasay hosted by Renee Salud, one of the country’s premier fashion designers.
Busa observed, however, that homosexuals in the country are more accepted in the Philippines than their counterparts anywhere else in Asia.
He recalled Filipinos were still thinking in a box in the 1960s. A job application would be rejected if the employer learned the applicant was a homosexual.
In the 1980s, however, they began to gain acceptance. The discrimination they suffered in recent decades began to recede.
Even the Muslim homosexuals in the country today have gained leniency from their own communities, Busa said.
The Golden Gays on David Street in Pasay, a walking distance from the corner of Gil Puyat and F.B. Harrison avenues, has been a landmark in the city. It was founded in that city in the late 1970s and was registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission after over a decade on November 4, 2002.
They welcome groceries and other gifts from individuals and groups who recognize them as part of the society, not only as a reality, Busa said.
Image credits: Oliver Samson