Eat...Bulaga!, a popular noon time show in the Philippines, featured an out gay man named Diamond with a wife and children, asking for advice.
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Diamond gets on stage at the 26:48 mark, where he is asked repeatedly by the show's hosts in Tagalog, "Is that really your birth name?"
Diamond asked what he can do to prevent his kids from being bullied for having a gay father.
One of the hosts suggested that Diamond change the way he dressed, behaved, and looked.
Another of the show's hosts, Philippine senator Tito Sotto, added in Tagalog, "In other words, go back into the closet."
The hosts also said that Diamond's children might also be mistaken to be gay because their father identifies as gay.
The televised exchange moved Cha Roque, a lesbian mom with an 11-year-old daughter, to write an open letter to Eat...Bulaga!
The letter has been shared over 1,400 times on Facebook and has been picked up by major local news sites.
I am a lesbian mom and I chose not to hide in the closet, because I love my kid. I don't think she deserves to be lied to and lying to her about who I am is the biggest betrayal. You don't hide secrets from the people you love — more so your identity. It is shows like yours and opinions like those that was expressed in your show that encourages the bullying of LGBT people and their families....We (LGBT people) do not want to hide. We want to be accepted, and acceptance is different from being tolerated. It is not okay that you are only okay with us if we keep quiet. It is not okay that you coexist with us just as long as we don't complain about how we are treated.You are not in the position to tell this guy "bumalik sa closet" or "bakit kasi nag-asa-asawa" or threaten to hurt him (jokingly). You are promoting a culture of hate. You are telling the world that corrective beating up is okay to make a gay guy become manly. You are telling the world that the only key to be accepted is to hide who you truly are.We have the right to our choices. We know who we are and you don't have the right to tell us to be otherwise.
Roque told BuzzFeed Philippines she wrote the open letter because she wanted to educate people about how these kinds of statements result in a culture of hate and discrimination.
Roque believes writing her open letter to the show was her duty as a mother and a member of the LGBT community.
"I am an out and proud lesbian mom," she told BuzzFeed Philippines. "I just really wanted to share my thoughts because I have seen and experienced struggles that LGBT families go through. My letter is not an attack. It was carefully written and I tried not to let my feelings get in the way. I tried to be as objective as I can because what I wanted was to get my point across — to be heard by the people who are part of the show and can do something about the issue."
Many Filipinos on Facebook have showed Roque their support.
Roque said the best response to her letter was a Change.org petition compelling the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board of the Philippines to make sensitivity training mandatory.
While many in the LGBT community have voiced their support for Roque, there were also comments from those who thought she was being overly sensitive and missed the point of the Eat...Bulaga! hosts' humor.
Neither Eat...Bulaga! nor its parent network GMA have responded to Roque’s open letter, but one of the show’s hosts, Paolo Ballesteros, posted this photo of a beauty pageant on his Instagram account.
In response to a comment that said, "Y'all could've handled the situation better," Ballesteros said in Tagalog, "Make your own show and host it so you wouldn't be annoyed."
Roque said that she thought twice about writing the open letter, but ultimately decided she could not stand idly by.
