LGBT people welcome to serve in Philippine military as long as they ‘act with dignity’
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is now allowing LGBT soldiers to sign up without strict rules, but some conditions will still be imposed on soldiers.
The AFP promised LGBT recruits would not be discriminated against, “as long as they behave” according to NewNowNext.
Soldiers, sailors and marines will all be promised protection as long as they carry themselves with “dignity”.
Chief of Public Affairs, Colonel Edgard Arevalo, said: “The AFP is not going to discriminate against [LGBT soldiers] — they are free to apply and enlist in the Armed Forces.
“We are being asked whether the recruitment will include members of the LGBT community. Are we not going to discriminate them? The answer is no. The AFP is not going to discriminate against them. Please feel free to apply and enter the Armed Forces.
“But we have one recommendation. The moment that they apply and get accepted in the Armed Forces of the Philippines, we are reminding them that they need to act and behave with dignity and with proper care to the uniform,” Arevalo stipulated.
The Colonel said that he believed that the LGBT community would be a great asset to the AFP.
The renewed recruitment policy of LGBT community members comes after controversial Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte called the US Ambassador to the Philippines “gay.”
The country’s recently-elected and frequently-outspoken President Rodrigo Duterte made the shocking comments in a TV interview.
In the interview, he referred to US Ambassador Philip Goldberg using crude homophobic slur ‘bakla’.
Speaking about the US, he said that although Secretary of State John Kerry is “okay… I had an argument with their gay ambassador, the son of a whore. He pissed me off”.
The pair have clashed repeatedly in the past, most notably when Duterte was a Presidential candidate and Goldberg took issue with a number of sexist jokes.
