Hi,

I am a Filipino, a fellow South East Asian. I was a South Korea fan. Let me explain this later.

I thought Thailand is our direct competitor when it comes to everything. I envy the Thais for having a government so compassionate with the LGBTQIA that the Thai government legalized same-sex marriage. I was envious.

For the past few months, I prevented myself from watching BLs (Boy’s Love) from Thailand. I envy that the BL industry if Thailand is soaring up high that I always think that the Philippines should also have that success.

It turns out that my envy and hate against Thailand is not justified. It turns out that most Thais are kind, which reminds me the kindness of most (if not all) Filipinos. I have a close friend working in Thailand and he says that the Thais are kind.

I am so sorry for hating Thailand. I am so, so wrong.

Even though the Philippines win the Miss Universe each year against Thailand, right now, we cannot compete with the way the Thais are compassionate with the LGBTQIA . I can only pray that we achieve that kind of equality here in the Philippines, but as long as government officials with no compassion with the poor and only thinks about their self interest… we will never reach the equality that Thailand have. Imagine, there is this senator elected that is a son of a president-founder of a church and his father is also part of the House of Representatives. These two notoriously blocked the SOGIE Bill (an anti-discrimination bill that seeks to prohibit discrimination based on a person's expression of sexual orientation or gender identity). I hate these two to the core.

Aside from that, I watched Youtube videos about some South Korean people being so racist towards Filipinos and other SEA people. They think that Filipinos only marry old Koreans, or only for their money. It hurted me as a Filipino, because we are just humans too. We are struggling with the current government, the discrimination against the LGBTQIA . It turned out that the Filipinos helped the South Koreans defeat the North Koreans during the war before, but why do they think they are superior against SEA people? The least that they can give us SEA people is the gratitude that we helped them be successful as a nation.

I hope that Thailand, Philippines, and other SEA nations stand together and create our own “pop” culture to the point that we can be proud of. Right now, here in the Philippines, BINI is now being considered as the Nation’s Girl Group and they are leveraging PPop (Pinoy Pop) to the next level and to the international scene, together with the boy group SB19. I hope to hear some awesome TPop music soon!

South East Asian nations, let’s stand head up high with confidence!