Victims of domestic violence:

Attacked by husbands, trapped by society

By CLAIRE DELFIN, Philippine Human Rights Reporting Project

MANILA, Philippines - It was the middle of the night when Rowena (not her real name) woke to the
sounds of her husband in his drunken stupor returning home and struggling with the door. Her heart
was pounding for she knew all too well from a long and painful experience what would happen next.
And so, it did: Before she had a chance to jump off the bed to defend herself, he was already punching
her full in the face. By the time he was finished assaulting her, Rowena’s face and body was a mass of
cuts and bruises which took more than a week to heal. Physically if not emotionally recovered,
Rowena finally decided that enough was enough. “Ayoko na. Pagod na ako. (I couldn’t bear it any
longer. I was tired)," she said. Then aged 22, a college dropout and jobless, Rowena packed her things
up, got together her three children and left. “It was the best decision I’ve ever made," she said looking
back. But were it not for her parents providing support and a place to go, Rowena admits she would
not have been able to muster enough courage to leave. Like her, few battered wives have the luxury
of returning to their childhood homes. According to the Gabriela Women’s Party, a Congressional
group committed to promoting the rights and interests of marginalized and disadvantaged women,
a Filipina is a victim of domestic abuse every two hours. “The problem of domestic violence is
extremely common," says spokeswoman Gert Libang, “but the question that always pops into the
heads of victims is: ‘How will I feed my children if I leave?’ She adds that nearly all of the 400 women
who sought help from Gabriela Women’s Party last year were jobless mothers with no means to make
a successful getaway from abusive partners. Sharp contradiction in a report entitled “Gender Issues
– Philippines," the German donor, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation claims a “sharp contradiction" in
gender equality. It says that while significant inroads have been achieved in recent years, including
the election of two women as president and having many high-standing political, business and
academic Filipinas, many women continue to suffer domestic abuse. The presence of a relatively
strong women's liberation movement has not reduced a deeply engrained patriarchal culture in
Filipino families, mostly Catholic and Islamic which views the father as the head of the family.
“Traditional sex-role definitions assigning homemaking to women and financial provision for the
family to men still persists," says in the report. Protection of women in the midst of the persistent
patriarchal culture of Filipinos, women’s organizations have however successfully managed to bring
the issue of domestic violence to Congress which passed the Anti-Violence against Women and their
Children Act in 2004. Under this law, violence means not only physical abuse such as beatings and
sexual attacks, but also that which is economic or psychological in nature. The law defines economic
abuse as the withdrawal of financial support or preventing the victim from engaging in any legitimate
occupation, except in cases wherein the other spouse or partner objects on valid, serious and moral
grounds. Psychological abuse is when a woman or child is put to shame in public and subjected to
verbal abuse, among others. Treating the woman as a sexual object ranks as “sexual abuse." If serious
violence is committed against women while they are pregnant or in the presence of her children,
courts are instructed to apply the maximum penalty allowable which includes life
imprisonment. Reporting cases, The Philippine National Police (PNP) says the law effectively
encourages victims to come forward and report their case to the authorities. In less than ten years,
police have noted a big leap in the number of cases reported to them: from 1,100 in 1996 to over
6,500 by 2005. The PNP says that while husbands are the primary perpetrators, some are boyfriends
or unmarried partners. It believes, however, that there are many more victims who do not report
attacks to the authorities because of reasons similar to those cited by Gabriela Women’s Party. They
do not see a way out. “There is an element of forgiveness for the sake of family togetherness," says
Chief Supt. Yolanda Tanigue, chief of the PNP Women and Children’s Division. Gabriela Women’s
Party adds that the pain of breaking a family is further sealed by the tragic belief that violence in the
confines of intimate relationships is trivial. It recounts cases when a victim rushes to the village
chieftain or barangay captain to seek help, only to be told to go back home and discuss it out with the
spouse because, after all, it is simply a couple’s quarrel or better known in Filipino as away mag-
asawa. “For the barangay the quarrel only becomes a case when someone is already dead," says
spokeswoman Libang. She claims that some male lawyers and judges fail to take the issue of domestic
violence seriously enough. She maintains that some even have accused victims of having “raging
insecurities" while others have been reprimanded for “wasting the court’s time." Libang adds:
“Unfortunately, having laws to protect women does not mean the mindset of people has changed. We
are left dealing with attitude and culture." According to the police, women who manage to pursue an
expensive, long and stressful legal battle against their perpetrators are mostly coming from the
middle and upper socio-economic strata. This means that domestic violence is not a monopoly of
poor families. There are also victims coming from gated and exclusive subdivisions. Some are
professionals, and a few are occupying managerial positions. Perpetrators Chauvinism is a common
thinking among perpetrators, according to PNP’s Supt. Tanigue. “If you ask them why you hurt your
wife, a lot of them would simply say they did it because they want to reaffirm that being the man,
they are the head of the family." In many cases, a sexist attitude is compounded by problems of drug
addiction, alcoholism, gambling and womanizing. But Tanigue says there are also instances when
violence at home is provoked by women themselves. There are men who have hit their partners out
of anger and exasperation, coming home from work only to find his wife not only gambling, but
cuddling with another man as well. This happens often in urban poor areas, she adds. “When women
claim for their rights, we must also remember that these have equal responsibilities," Tanigue
says. Impact on children Children, too, are not spared. Alongside the physical and emotional battering
many women receive are the emotional scars left on children who are caught in the middle. There
are at least three million children in the Philippines who are exposed to violence at home according
to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) which provides shelter, legal aid,
psychosocial help, and medical aid to victims and their children. It maintains such children suffer the
traumatic effects for the rest of their lives. “Their chances of becoming perpetrators are higher than
those of children who are not exposed to domestic violence" says DSWD Secretary Esperanza Cabral.
Such is the case of Rowena, who says her own children were unwilling witnesses to her continual
beatings at the hands of her husband. She later saw the impact it had on them, particularly her eldest
child who was seven when she finally left and who she describes as quiet, detached and absent-
minded. Hence, ending a life with an abusive husband was a choice she made not only for herself, but
more importantly, for her children. “It was right we left him." - Philippine Human Rights Reporting
Project (The author is a television news reporter of GMA Network, Inc. and a regular contributor of
special reports on women, children, health, education, and the environment to the network's news
and public affairs website, GMANews.TV.)
Violence Against Women is any act of gender-based violence that results or is likely to result in
physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women including threats or such acts,
coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty whether occurring in public or private life. Gender-
based violence is any violence inflicted on women because of their sex.

VAW in the family or domestic violence is “violence that occurs within the private sphere,
generally between individuals who are related through intimacy, blood or law.” It may take the
form of physical violence (hitting with the fist, slapping, kicking different parts of the body,
stabbing with a knife, etc) or psychological and emotional violence(intimidation, harassment,
stalking, damage to property, public ridicule or humiliation, repeated verbal abuse, marital
infidelity, etc.) or sexual violence (rape, sexual harassment, acts of lasciviousness, treating a
woman or child as a sex object, making demeaning and sexually suggestive remarks, physically
attacking the sexual parts of the victim’s body, forcing him/her to watch obscene publications
and indecent shows or forcing the woman or her child to do indecent acts and/or make films
thereof, forcing the wife and mistress/lover to live in the conjugal home or sleep together in the
same room with the abuser, etc) or economic abuse (withdrawal of financial support or
preventing the victim from engaging in any legitimate profession, occupation, business or
activity, deprivation or threat of deprivation of financial resources and the right to use and
enjoyment of the conjugal, community or property owned in common, destroying household
property; and controlling the victim’s own money or properties or solely controlling the conjugal
money or properties.

REACTION:

Nowadays, many couples or live in partner have suffered from their husbands. Many women are
abused by their spouse or partner. They have no courage to defend themselves and to report to
the authorities because sometimes they are threatened by their husband. Others are afraid to
hurt their children too.

The number of incidents of violence for women increases and decreases the age involved. Often
young people who are early marriages because of early pregnancy. Young people drinking alcohol
and using prohibited drugs often have the courage to hurt and abuse their spouse.

Here in Philippines, we have a Republic Act 9262 also known as “Anti Violence Against Women
and their Children”. It is a law implemented in 2004 to protect women and their children against
abuse.

In the case of Rowena, she decided to leave her husband who abuse her. At her young age she
suffered pain from her husband. Like her, few battered wives have the luxury of returning to their
childhood homes. Today our country empowered the women to have courage to depend herself
to those who hurt them.