NAOMI FONTANOS
Gender Enabler
By Kiki Tan
FIRST PUBLISHED: FEBRUARY 2009
UPDATED: JUNE 2010

EMPOWERING PEOPLE. For Naomi Fontanos, education can help promote equality.

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“We have a sizeable number of GLBTQIA professionals working in education as in other professions. And many of them are blazing trails in their own fields of specialization. There’s Natty Manauat in De La Salle University who founded Gender Studies there; J.Neil Garcia in University of the Philippines who established the first gay writing course in the country; and Danton Remoto in Ateneo de Manila who (formerly chaired) Ang Ladlad, the national organization of GLBTQIA Filipinos.  And they are just the tip of the iceberg.”

GRACE UNDER PRESSURE. Naomi Fontanos (below; and with a friend, above) believes that education can help promote GLBTQIA issues, especially if/when it is included in the basic education curriculum.

So says Naomi Fontanos, an educator herself (currently a researcher and tutor for a distance learning institution; though also a candidate for the Master of Arts in Education Language Education at the UP College of Education), currently sitting in the Board of Ang Ladlad, and is, thus, a staunch advocate of GLBTQIA rights – a gender enabler, in not so many words.

EDUCATION FOR CHANGE

It actually wasn’t in Fontanos’ plan to be a teacher, but “I ended up finishing a bachelor’s degree in education at UP Diliman (Quezon City), so it can be said that my being in this field is purely accidental.  I love to teach, though, and am licensed to do so – only, I want to teach at the tertiary level hence the pursuit of a graduate degree.”

Fontanos believes that “education as a profession is generally accommodating towards GLBTQIA people not the least because it is a feminized profession, but also because it has a lot of enlightened people working in it.  Of course, it has its own share of anti-GLBTQIA members. GLBTQIA-phobia with strong Judeo-Christian and Islamic influence permeates all levels and areas in education, but it is most acutely felt in basic education.  It is at this level that I feel a deep need for change,” she says, noting how “the basic education curriculum in the Philippines is silent on GLBTQIA people, their social movement for change, and the rights that movement is working to attain.  I have yet to see a world history book that mentions the GLBTQIA movement as part of the world’s modern history.  I hope that will change soon, especially with GLBTQIA rights increasingly tackled as human rights.”

Education can help promote GLBTQIA rights by “including GLBTQIA issues in the human rights curriculum.  The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) has a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to promote human rights education in all higher education institutions (HEIs) – and although I don’t know if that curriculum includes GLBTQIA rights, the current CHR head has voiced out her support for GLBTQIA rights."

Definitely CHR must do the same with the Department of Education (DepEd),” she says.  “After all, we must teach respect for diversity and respect for all people regardless of race, creed, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, social status, physical ability, et cetera during the formative years.”

BIG ADVOCATE

Fontanos’ foray into GLBTQIA advocacy started in 1997, as a member of a GLBTQIA student organization in UP Diliman.  “My parents did not know much about my activities in UP. They knew though that I was some kind of activist.  (Thus, the) biggest challenge then for me was my family because both my older sister and brother were also in UP Diliman at that time.  They were concerned that being active in an organization might affect my studies,” she recalls.

Looking at the GLBTQIA community, Fontanos notes that “the community has grown exponentially since the late 1990s.  This is for the good, of course, because that means that we have among us more people who are less afraid to come out and more brave to be themselves, to live their truth and at younger and younger ages at that.  The challenge is how to harness that collective pride that will ultimately benefit our community.”

Fontanos adds:  “The biggest challenge facing our community is unity. As in other countries, GLBTQIA advocates in the Philippines come from different political persuasions and that definitely gets in the way. Luckily, the framework ‘GLBTQIA rights are human rights’ puts everyone on the same page.  But even that is not enough.  I meet so many GLBTQIA people who only start caring about their rights when they finally experience discrimination.  Many in our community are simply apathetic and that is sad because there is so much they can do even behind the scenes.  I want them to know that there is not a single way to advocate for one’s rights and that of one’s community.  If you don’t want to rally in the streets, then you don’t have to.  But at least don’t stop those who want to or otherwise, choose to support them in alternative ways: help make their placards, give them food, help them publicize their demonstration, donate, et cetera.  Additionally you can be an advocate by simply standing up against GLBTQIA-directed bigotry at work, in school, in public spaces, et cetera.  Do not cooperate in our own oppression.  If it is safe to do so and you are doing no one harm, arrest anti-GLBTQIA prejudice at once. Do not enable it.”

While Fontanos is disappointed that “many of us have to unlearn our own internalized GLBTQIA-phobia, (for) it is what makes us look down on each other, it is what makes us cruel and unkind to each other,” she is, nonetheless, happy to notice that “already, we feel the effects of (the introduction of GLBTQIA advocacies) with the formation of Ang Ladlad, for example – a national organization for GLBTQIA Filipinos would have been unheard of a decade ago, but now you have one, and it has the potential to represent us in government.”

HOPEFUL FUTURE

Fontanos finds inspiring “people who dream and work for real social change.  I am particularly inspired by the younger set of people who come to advocacy work with so much hope and love for the community.  This is ultimately how our activism will be renewed: when it is passed on to the next generation that is eager to learn from those who came before them, who are willing to carry the torch themselves, and do all that with good intentions,” she says.