LGBTQ partners have zero conjugal rights in majority-Catholic Philippines. This discrimination can be life-or-death in emergency medical decisions, because hospitals only recognize legal spouses or next-of-kin.

The local government of Quezon City wanted to protect its LGBTQ constituents. So we worked with the Quezon City Gender and Development council and various legal teams to create the Right to Care Card.

This card digitally carries a Special Power of Attorney – a legal document used to assign financial decisions, repurposed to assign consent to medical procedures, to authorize admission/discharge of patients, to obtain medical documents, and other healthcare decisions that legally-married couples take for granted.

This project by the council has now become a LAW. Quezon City lawmakers enacted the City ORDINANCE NO. 3221, making all 423 healthcare providers in Quezon City honor the card. 890 LGBTQ couples have signed up for the card and it’s still counting to this day.