Gay Comrades: Historicizing the Sexual and Gender Issues in the Communist Party of the Philippines

Abstract

The history of Philippine revolution has been a history of contradictions. It has been a struggle of the Filipino people against foreign colonizers, against indirect colonizations, against imperialism, and even against its own fellow Filipinos. The national democratic revolution being waged by the Communist Party of the Philippines, together with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines and the New Peoples Army, is characterized by its parliamentary and armed struggles. The Party itself has faced many contradictions which in one way or another, it tried to resolve. One of these is the sexual struggle that its members are
experiencing. For the past four decades, the Party has tried to understandand respond to the contradictions on sexuality of its gay members. This paper presents a historical overview of the sexual struggle and resolution of the Communist Party of the Philippunes.