St. Paul University Iloilo (SPUI), through its Advocacy Program Office, held a seminar on “Sex, Gender, and Sexuality” for three groups on July 12, 13, and 14, 2017 at the Marian Theater. The invited speaker to the event was Rev. Fr. Rodolfo Vicente Cancino, Jr., M.I., a Camillian priest and a medical doctor who serves as the Executive Secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines Commission on Health Care. The first day of the seminar was geared toward the SPUI administrators, faculty, and staff as well as the invited representatives from other schools in Iloilo City. The second and third days were held for the Senior High School Students of SPUI.

In his talk, Fr. Cancino lays out the dynamism of sex and illustrates how individuals engage this in the different stages of their lives. He emphasizes that the individual’s vision and values define how one relates with the others. A healthy way of embodying one’s sex and gender largely depends on how one integrates one’s sexuality with one’s vision and values. And in the Catholic tradition, the guiding principle in relating with one another, despite differences in sex and gender, is God’s loving mercy.