All tagged The Philippines

Artists are often deeply rooted in one country. For Amrita Sher-Gil it was India. David Paynter had Sri Lanka. Claudio Bravo had not one country, but many. Moving from his native Chile, he travelled through America, Morocco, Spain, and the Philippines without seeming too attached to any one country. A relatively successful painter, he was allowed more freedom to explore the world than many of his contemporaries and gave much more attention to his love of painting than any nationalistic inclination.

The Philippines is one of the most LGBT friendly countries in Asia. A 2014 poll found that 73% of Filipinos said that gay and lesbian people should be accepted by society—a shockingly different opinion from other nearby Asian countries with Malaysia coming in at 9% and Indonesia at 3%. This is surprising in a majority Roman Catholic country like the Philippines. There is a long history of acceptance for queer people in the Philippines, dating all the way back to pre-Spanish colonization and conversion to Catholicism. In Filipino mythology, there was always a queer presence.