MANILA: A Filipino drag queen has been arrested and charged for a second time over his performance of the Lord’s Prayer that caused widespread outrage in the deeply religious country.
Amadeus Fernando Pagente was arrested late Thursday and charged with three counts of the offence of “immoral doctrines, obscene publications and exhibitions and indecent shows”, police said Friday.
The offence — the same one that Pagente was charged with in October — carries a penalty of up to 12 years in jail.
Supporters of Pagente, whose drag name is Pura Luka Vega, have turned to social media to raise the 360,000 pesos ($6,425) bail set by a court.
A video of Pagente’s performance went viral in July 2023 and ignited outrage among the country’s faithful, who saw it as a blasphemous act.
Pagente, who uses he, she and they pronouns, has been declared “persona non grata” in multiple cities and bombarded with hate messages and death threats on social media.
He had been on bail for the first charge when he was arrested Thursday.
In a recent interview with AFP, Pagente said he was a devout Catholic and had performed the Lord’s Prayer to “reignite” a sense of faith among LGBTQ people who have felt shunned by the Church.
Nearly 80 percent of the Philippine population is Catholic.
LGBTQ alliance Bahaghari said in a statement Pagente’s latest arrest was an “attack on LGBTQI people’s expression on their relationship with faith and religion”. –AFP
