Editorial: When women abuse

IN BARANGAY Mambaling, Alfredo Ortega was a familiar sight on the streets.

In the morning, he would hawk bibingka, rice cakes he made himself. In the afternoons, he wove in and out of the traffic, selling for P1 his round-shaped rags made from leftover cloth."

While other men would look down on Alfredo’s livelihood, the man earned the admiration of neighbors for his industriousness and perseverance to secure his family’s survival.

Mixed with their respect was pity. According to Celia (not her real name), Alfredo was often alone in taking care of the five children.

His common-law wife, Racquel Abellaneda, frequently left their family to go off with male acquaintances. Neighbors overheard quarrels break out when Racquel came home.

Whenever Alfredo vented his suspicions about her affairs, Racquel threatened to leave him and the children since they were not married.

The quarrels always ended with Alfredo accepting back Racquel.

Cycle of violence

On Aug. 22, Alfredo fetched Racquel when she returned from Manila, where she worked as a household helper. Before she left, their 15-year-old daughter had read text messages from a man on Racquel’s mobile phone. After the couple came home from the pier, Alfredo confronted Racquel about his suspicions of her Manila reunion with an ex-boyfriend.

Neighbors rushed to the couple’s home when the screaming started. One of the first to enter the home vomited when he saw Racquel, stabbed a dozen times and mutilated.

A 12-year-old son said that when he tried to stop his father from attacking his mother, Alfredo warned him not to get in the way or else he would also get “what was coming to her.”

Celia agrees with the law punishing men who commit violence against women. But after pointing out that Alfredo, whom she perceives as the “perennially wronged and abused partner,” is now the subject of a manhunt and the future of their five children is uncertain, she questions also the accountability of women who, by inflicting emotional abuse, invite similar or worse retaliation from their partners.

Moral alignment

While women’s advocates have praised the recent passage of the Magna Carta of Women, many Filipino Catholics follow the stance of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) that it is only through proper alignment with both the moral law and the Philippine Constitution that the rights of women can be genuinely upheld.

Among the Magna Carta provisions questioned by the CBCP as “anti-life” and “anti-family”: the assertion that all human rights are equal and cannot be arranged in hierarchical order (the CBCP contends for the primacy of the right to life as preceding all other rights); the collaboration of the family with the state and other stakeholders in youth sexuality education and health services (the CBCP asserts the primary right and duty of parents to educate their children); and the prohibition of expulsion from enrolment or employment any student or teacher who is pregnant out of wedlock (the CBCP says this violates the right of educational institutions to maintain moral standards and discipline among students and faculty).

Many Catholics view that, in overemphasizing women’s rights over responsibilities, the law gives a dangerous blanket absolution, which encourages in some women a moral laxity in fulfilling their obligations in the home, workplace and community.

Julius, a member of the laity and a social entrepreneur, observes that double standards of “empowerment” are observed among a community of village women he taps as subcontractors.

He says the women complain of abuse and abandonment to barangay officials when their husbands will not fish and bring in income. However, when the women do not have orders for piecemeal work, they “borrow” funds for card games from the barangay captain, who extracts sexual favors as payment.

The practice of the women selling themselves or their daughters is so rampant, Julius often overhears them casually bargaining with each other to trade places for “night duty” because one person has her monthly period.

The barangay has a high record of domestic violence, such as incidences of husbands dragging away their partners from marathon betting games or men throwing out their partners from the windows of their homes.

Under the Magna Carta of Women and the Republic Act 9262, or the Anti-Violence against Women and Their Children Act of 2004, women and children are protected from physical, psychological and economic abuse.

But according to Celia and Julius, who will protect families and children when the abuses are committed by the women, as well as the men?

I would like to ask Atty. K. Legarda to put herself on chavit singsons shoes at the moment you catch your partner with another doing the thing.

pustahan all logic goes out the window...magpakatotoo

But I will save some bet when she will say that id report it to the police and file a case...

yeah right like the incident was something like a common vandalism...

I agree with CBCP. Your views?