Count them in…

Uriel C. Quilinguing .

ONCE again, enumerators which the Philippine Statistics Authority hired are in the field for the agency’s quarterly Labor Force Survey, the results of which are vital for development planners, policy and decision-makers in government, in corporate boardrooms as well as in civil society organization conversations.

These statistical results, just like other PSA surveys and censuses, can be relied upon to be reflective of realities on the ground, unlike those from pulse survey firms that are predominantly on popularity ratings. With approximately 44,000 households as sample size, PSA’s LFS can never go wrong. In fact, enumerators  are now equipped with tablets for computer-aided personal interviews of respondents.

For the past 18 years, the LFS survey instrument has become a dynamic  tool; it has undergone revisions almost every year to make it responsive in capturing pieces of information which users of results need. But there’s one sector, a significant component of the labor force for several decades now which should be factored in in the LFS to make the government project truly inclusive. I am referring to the growing community of LGBT which stands for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders.

Until now, PSA does not have an LGBT population estimates and demographic statistics. This is so because PSA survey instruments do not have an Mx box, other than the usual M and F boxes. Mx is the honorific for persons who are neither male or female. For this purpose, the intent  is only to determine the LGBT population, without the need to account for intersex individuals, those who were born with a rare mix between female and male genitalia.  

If the state’s statistics agency would only alter its survey instruments, once again, and facilitate the entry of additional boxes on sexual orientations, then many statistical information on LGBT can be culled out. Many if not most of them are not only in the labor force, they are also in the sexually active age bracket, some in high-risk occupations vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases.

Six years ago, the US-based Pew Research Center conducted a survey, the findings of which were contained in “The Global Divide on Homosexuality,” one of which was that 73 percent or seven out of 10 adult Filipinos believed homosexuality should be accepted by Philippine society. That was an improvement of the 64-percent of a similar survey in 2002 and figures, I believe, could increase even more.

The growing public acceptance of homosexuality and LGBT as a whole has something to do with greater awareness on the differences between sex as referring to the biological and physiological characteristics and gender that refers to behavior, roles, expectations and activities the person do. 

PSA survey enumerators must have encountered LGBTs in the field and observed cases of reversal of gender roles and this should be included in the LFS.  

While the PSA need not include in their surveys same-sex marriages, just yet, it can no longer turn a blind eye on increasing LGBT members, many of them hold positions of influence in various fields of endeavors and professions. No wonder, a lawmaker who wish to impose sexual preferences and orientations , wishes to ban gays teachers in classrooms for young learners. If this is so, the same should be imposed on lesbians. This is so because the LGBT’s influence on the young and how they should behave, dress, talk and walk cannot just be ignored, hence they must be counted in. 

(Uriel C. Quilinguing is a past president of the Cagayan de Oro Press Club. He is a former editor in chief of this paper and is currently engaged in campus journalism trainings.)