Silent Sanctuary, popular band known for OPM favorites "Kundiman," "Rebound," "Kismet," "Bumalik Ka Na Sa'kin," among many others, has been dropped from the roster of performers at “Love Laban sa QC,” an event meant to celebrate Pride Month held Saturday, June 24 at the QC Circle.
According to a statement released by organizers, this is due to “homophobic actions” done to one of their own.
The statement in full:
“WE ARE DROPPING SILENT SANCTUARY from our roster of performers at #LoveLabanSaQC for today's program due to homophobic actions done to one of our own reported earlier this morning.
“Pride PH would like to assure our queer siblings in the LGBTQIA++ community that we remain a safe space for all and hence will not take this nor
other similar cases lightly.
“As a collective, we stand firm on our values and stay true to our principles as long as we are here.
“Pride PH strongly condemns and strongly stands against any form of discrimination, homophobia, and harassment.
“We are taking full accountability and apologize for initially including them in the roster of performers.
“We are committed to do better and learn from this oversight.
“HOMOPHOBES ARE NEVER WELCOME ON OUR STAGE. THIS IS OUR SAFE SPACE. THIS IS OUR PRIDE.”
Silent Sanctuary is, well, silent on the issue.
Many netizens aren't.
They were only too quick to condemn the band.
Some of the comments:
“Dasurv!”
“Kung may ginawa dapat lang!”
“Ang galing! Ambilis ng aksyon! Bye bye Silent Sanctuary!”
“Enablers na homophobes pa...boom!”
“Okay lang irrelevant naman na sila.”
“If they can’t support us, why join in the first place?”
Prior to the whole thing exploding on social media, Ian Carandang, who claims to have been part of the band prior as singer, tweeted, “Just
learned that Silent Sanctuary is playing at QC Pride Night and the fact that when I was their vocalist they told me I needed to go back into the closet if I wanted to keep being their vocalist is extremely offensive to me.”
“I have always stayed quiet on this but THIS is a bridge too far for me that they purport to be pro-LGBT but have never publicly acknowledged or
made amends for what they did to me is the last straw.”