Celebrating purpose beyond Pride
In the middle of Pride Month, the Philippine LGBT Chamber of Commerce (PLCC) and Quezon City government’s QueerCon 2025 emerged as a landmark for LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurship in the Philippines.
The two-day expo in Quezon City united over 40 queer-owned brands and emphasized “purpose beyond Pride”—from panels on drag economics to queer fashion—in a 100-percent queer- and queer-allied marketplace.
It wasn’t just a festival.
As PLCC chair Ronn Astillas notes, QueerCon is “a pioneering initiative that puts the spotlight on queer-owned businesses”.
By bringing small business owners and consumers together under one roof, QueerCon showed how Pride celebrations could also become economic engines for queer and queer-allied small business owners.
Charting the Pink Economy
The economic stakes are high.
A recent report estimated that discrimination against LGBTQIA+ Filipinos costs the country up to P147.6 billion per year (about 0.3 to 0.7 percent of Gross Domestic Product).
That’s value drained by wasted talent, untreated health burdens and forgone tourism. Turning this around is not only just, but can also be profitable.
Astillas stresses that the pink economy has been steadily growing, and by harnessing the power of the pink peso, businesses can tap into a sizable and underserved market, boosting customer bases and revenues.
Businesses are starting to notice.
The PLCC recently launched the “Pride Seal of Excellence” (Prise) to make LGBTQIA+ inclusion a corporate best practice.
Even mainstream business coalitions are joining in—for example, the Philippine Business Coalition for Women’s Empowerment (PBCWE) now includes LGBTQIA+ criteria in its equality assessments.
In this climate, QueerCon itself is proof of concept: an inclusive expo that celebrates diversity while fueling the local economy.
Beyond the bazaar
During QueerCon, ideals became enterprise. Booths offered handcrafted bags, colognes, tech apps, art, food, wellness products and more.
Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte—a vocal queer ally—opened the expo and praised the innovative offerings.
Belmonte has made QC a self-styled “rainbow city” (it held the country’s first “Rainbow Graduation” for LGBTQIA+ youth), asserting that “in Quezon City, you have the right to express your truth, no matter your sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression”.
Her presence underscored how local leadership can partner in queer-inclusive growth.
Every sale at QueerCon sent a message.
Astillas emphasizes that each purchase was “a vote for equity and visibility”.
In practical terms, this means shopping at queer-owned businesses helps stabilize their livelihoods and create jobs in the community.
For example, the founders of Barbierro—the Philippines’ first openly queer barbershop and a PLCC member—told reporters that “the community’s contribution to the economy is being very much undermined”.
QueerCon helped turn that around by putting queer entrepreneurs in the spotlight.
Toward equality: Politics and culture
QueerCon’s mission is inseparable from Pride’s activist roots: supporting the most marginalized in society.
Pride events in the Philippines have always blended celebration with protest—creating safe spaces for identities while marching against injustice.
Recently, queer advocates made that explicit: they rallied under “Stonewall Philippines” and reminded everyone that Pride is, first and foremost, a protest.
They specifically pointed out that the long-delayed SOGIE Equality Bill still remains pending in Congress.
QueerCon’s commerce is part of the same fight: showing that LGBTQIA+ inclusion belongs everywhere, from law to the marketplace.
There are hopeful signs.
The Commission on Elections even launched a “Rainbow Agenda” with the youth LGBTQIA+ group Philippine Anti-discrimination Alliance of Youth Leaders for the 2025 polls, vowing that no Filipino’s vote will be “discriminated against”.
Meanwhile, Quezon City continues to lead with nondiscrimination ordinances.
Outside government, local Pride gatherings keep growing: Pride PH’s June 2024 festival alone drew well over 100,000 attendees, underlining the community’s vibrancy.
The road ahead
QueerCon 2025 highlights how queer empowerment includes economic empowerment, especially for small business owners.
It showed that an inclusive marketplace can generate excitement and opportunity, and that this resonates with entrepreneurs, consumers and investors alike.
Yet it also highlighted unfinished work.
As Astillas reminds us, we must never lose sight of the contribution of queer people even as we confront daily prejudice.
The next step, he argues, is to amplify our voices and stop the abuses so we can fully develop our community.
For now, QueerCon sends a powerful message to business and policymakers: LGBTQIA+ Filipinos are vital stakeholders in the Philippine economy.
By deliberately channeling the power of the pink peso into queer businesses, consumers and companies alike send a message of both solidarity and smart strategy.
The ultimate goal is an economy where supporting queer-owned brands is as ordinary as any other purchase—a market built by and for all Filipinos, with no one left out.
(The author is founding board member of the Philippine LGBT Chamber of Commerce (PLCC), Asia’s first chamber of commerce for LGBTQIA+ businesses. He is also one of the founders of Taxumo, the Philippines’ pioneering, multi-awarded, and BIR-accredited online tax filing and payment platform for Filipino freelancers and MSMEs.)
