Land Transportation Office’s LBTQIA+ policy is grotesque, egregious

What was Land Transportation Office (LTO) chief Jay Art Tugade thinking? Recently brought to our attention was the LTO advisory to the effect that LBTQIA+ are now included among senior citizens, pregnant women, persons with disability (PWDs), and other disadvantaged groups, as similarly entitled to preferential treatment via the “priority lanes” set up in all LTO offices across the archipelago.

Needless to say, that really threw everyone for a loop, including, most ironically, the LBTQIA+ community most of whom, through their organization called “Bahaghari” (rainbow), said for their group to be lumped together with persons with physical or mental handicaps who need help is “dangerous.”

Not only is it a grotesque and really OBTUSE idea, but it also HURTS senior citizens, pregnant women, PWDs, and others similarly situated, who are now practically robbed of their rightful and legal spaces on those lanes as able-bodied persons are now shamelessly asserting entitlement to the same priority. Is it too difficult for the LTO bright boys to imagine how those people, despite being straight, can so easily pretend to be LBTQIA+ just to get ahead of everyone else? It negates the legislative intent to give senior citizens, et al. the “priority” they deserve in the delivery of government service.

Seriously, what is the LTO’s protocol to determine the “genders” of many charlatans and impostors competing against senior citizens, et al.? Can its security guards accost them and interrogate them about their sexual preferences to justify their being on those lanes? Sad to say, as crazy ideas from government agencies go, this one most likely takes the cake. This is an egregious overreach on the part of LTO. It should put the kibosh on this stupidity at once.

STEPHEN L. MONSANTO