DIVO
Freedom to Love
By Mikee dela Cruz
PUBLISHED: JUNE 2009

“In DIVO, we push for loving – love for family, love for God/religion, love for self.  But we (also believe that while love is free, it) has limitations that should be known." Ervin Thomas Espiritu

If you build it, he will come.

That line – from Phil Alden Robinson’s Kevin Costner-starred adaptation of W.P. Kinsella’s Shoeless Joe in the Field of Dreams (1989) – continues to ring true in first building a structure, with the intended market to soon arrive after that. At least if the case in point is DIVO.

Organized only on 14 February 2009 (an offspring of La Familia Emoteras – so named because the members were “all emos then”) by Ervin Thomas Espiritu and co-founder Rancel Marcelo, mainly to “help bisexual and gay men (realize) freedom (in themselves and in the community,” DIVO’s members already reached 84 – that’s a member for almost every other day for four months.

“(This is a big development for) a group that just aims to share friendship,” says Espiritu.

And so it is.

CONSTANTLY CHALLENGED

Interestingly, even for a group seemingly raking in new members, DIVO isn’t spared from internal problems.  “We already had officers, and they all resigned and left the clan one by one,” Espiritu recalls of an occurrence just a few months back. The solution came in the form of promoting pro-active participation in the group.  “We didn’t re-elect the officers (immediately), making all of us ‘officers’ in some capacity or another. This approach (of making everybody a stakeholder) went well, as everybody started cooperating.”

Of course, participation is greatly limited by the fact that most of DIVO’s members are still students, and are, therefore, financially constrained – another “challenge for us,” Espiritu says.

Despite the challenges, Espiritu believes groups like DIVO can help push for GLBTQIA issues.  “Maybe the simplest way, showing people who we are, that we are not dirty, that we also have the right to live our lives or to be free,” he says.  “By simply existing, we make them aware we are here.”

PROMOTING LOVE

“We don’t settle for one-night stands, or things of that sort; so we don’t do SEBs and GSEBs (sex eyeballs, and grand sex eyeballs),” Espiritu says, stressing that this may be one of the main differentiators between DIVO and other clans of its sort.  “In DIVO, we push for loving – love for family, love for God/religion, love for self.  But we (also believe that while love is free, it) has limitations that should be known. (Thus, as such, we) don’t settle for (quickies); we’re for long-term relationships (familial/brotherly or even romantic).”

DIVO has, actually, started mingling with similarly-organized groups, “as we have joined some activities already, like volleyball tournaments, and (the recent) Mr. and Ms. Bi, an inter-clan beauty pageant.”

Now referred among its peers as the “freedom clan,” for “helping bisexuals (and gays alike realize) their freedom,” DIVO continues to provide “yet another venue for self-expression (of GLBTQIAs).”

It is, as Espiritu says, all about freedom.

And the knowing of how to temper that.

And so with DIVO, with the building done, the coming comes.