• CHRYSEE G. SAMILLANO
The Pamilyako Partylist, a new partylist advocating for the rights and interests of modern day or non-traditional Filipino families, held a campaign caravan in Bacolod City yesterday.
Its first nominee, lawyer Arnel Diaz, yesterday said this is their first attempt to seek a seat in Congress. They are a true partylist because they have an advocacy for the modern Filipino family composed of “Live-in parents, OFW parents, victims of domestic abuse, adoptive families, blended families, LGBTQIA+ families, elderly and extended families, and single or solo parents, which is given an acronym LOVABLES.”
Diaz said the acronym stands for the sectors they are representing which he believes deserve the same love given to traditional families. They, the founding members, are all products of this unique family arrangement. He cited for example that he is an orphan raised by his extended family who provided him education.
There are three legislative measures they want to push in Congress. First, they want to equalize the rights of legitimate and illegitimate children. They want to confer on them equal rights because the Supreme Court had recently rendered a decision saying that it is not illegal for a child to be born out of wedlock, he said.
They also want to confer certain rights to live-in and LGBTQIA+ couples. Some of these rights included in the Domestic Partnership Law are the right to marry again, the right to manage properties, and the right to give advance medical directive like the giving of consent when it comes to important medical decisions, Diaz said
Pamilyako Partylist is the only partylist pushing for a legal framework on surrogacy to define certain parameters, including the obligation and rights of all parties in the arrangement, meaning the surrogate mother, the child who will be born out of the surrogacy arrangement, and the parents who availed of the surrogacy, he said.
The second nominee of Pamilyako Partylist is Miguel Kallos.*
