Babaylanes is a non-government organisation formally established in 2008. It is mandated to serve as an LGBTQI resource centre by:

• Developing SOGIESC-focused research and LGBTQI-responsive policies;
• Providing expertise in LGBTQI issues and human rights education; and,
• Organizing networks for advocacy and campaigns.

It is the alumni organisation of the longest-running LGBTQI student organisation in Asia from the University of the Philippines, UP Babaylan. Babaylanes also serves as the secretary-general of Lagablab LGBT Network, a broad alliance of LGBTQI organisations in the Philippines seeking to promote the rights of the LGBTQI Filipinos through policies and legislation.

There is already an organising presence from various LGBTQI groups in different parts of the country. However, what’s often highlighted or what’s often involved in policy changes at the national level are those mostly middle-class groups based in Metro Manila, the capital of the Philippines. Even among the network of LGBTQI student organizations, those established from rural universities are hardly sustained. This disparity in terms of access to state institutions, resources, and opportunities, grows further because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which took a hit on people’s political mobility, and the continuous withering of state institutions at the peripheries, which affects the quality of access of communities to social services.

Babaylanes Inc. comes in not as resource providers and sources of knowledge but as brokers–as facilitators of information, resources, opportunities, and even social relations. The organisation’s main objective is to address the disparity by bridging groups at the centre and groups at the peripheries and by initiating mutual exchanges of knowledge.

Their goal is to learn from the experiences– their strengths and needs— of two organisations, capacitate them and assist them in influencing their areas and integrate them into the broader LGBTQI network.

The change that Babaylanes wants to see is a national movement that fights for inclusion and progressive changes while leaving no one behind– making sure that inclusion and progress are not heavily concentrated at the centre. For a long-term and sustainable change, Babaylanes sees these organisations formally integrated into the broader network wherein the cross-learning experiences could continue. This also hopes that by being part of a larger collective and by being connected to allies in congress, organisations have more incentive to participate in and have more access to political terrains, given that state fragility, weak governance and surveillance, are the conditions navigated by those at the peripheries.