Battered wife leads fight for divorce in the Philippines

Back in the 1980s, Cici Jueco was the envy of her university classmates because she caught the eye of Abu Ben Honesto Berdul, a Lebanese student who was popular on campus.

In her words, Abu Ben, who was studying architecture, was the charming Aladdin and “everybody’s crush.” 

“He swept me off my feet,” Jueco said of the whirlwind romance that led to their eventual marriage in 1986. She was then studying interior design at the University of the Philippines, and as she described it, her life was perfect.

But what she thought was a fairytale marriage turned into a 19-year nightmare when, Jueco alleged, she was routinely verbally abused, repeatedly beaten and raped by her own husband, who died in 2017.

“On our first night together, he slapped me because I didn’t know how to cook. He became furious because I burnt the meal I prepared for him. I was shocked,” Jueco told BenarNews in an interview at her Metro Manila home.

Although their marriage died many years ago, Jueco is still officially married to Berdul and has been unable to secure a divorce in the Philippines, a staunchly majority-Catholic country where divorces are outlawed. The Philippines and the Vatican are the only two governments in the world that still outlaw divorce.

But now, Jueco says she’s found a reason to be optimistic for those similarly trapped in abusive marriages because, in June, the House of Representatives finally sent a proposed law on absolute divorce to the Senate. 

If enacted, the law would allow couples to file for divorce, if they’ve been separated for at least five years and reconciliation is unlikely, or if the couple has been legally separated for more than two years. 

During her marriage to Berdul, the beatings and verbal abuse became so regular that in her own way, Jueco said, she learned to fight. It was a toxic relationship that she always lost physically.

But every time she tried to leave her spouse, there was a reason that held her back. She sought advice from her Christian pastors, who told her to be a dutiful and submissive wife, and prioritize the sanctity of marriage.

“I endured it because the pastors and (church) elders told me that ‘you cannot leave your spouse’ ‘til death do us part,” she said. “Or until he kills me or I kill him, which I also planned.”

Her favorite clothes, even in the very humid Manila summers, was a turtleneck long-sleeved blouse, which she wore to hide the bruises on her arms and body. 

“My husband was the classic Jekyll and Hyde. There were times that he really was good, that he would put me on a pedestal. But he could also be very evil like Satan,” Jueco tearfully recalled.

Jueco said she had sought protection orders from the village police and even the courts, but was often rebuked by the mostly male officials as the one who had provoked her husband.

“It was always my mistake, they said. I asked for a legal separation but he said he’ll kidnap the children,” Jueco said, describing how it felt to be trapped for years in an abusive relationship.

The only power she held over her spouse was to withhold being intimate with him. But this only enraged him to the point that he raped her, which resulted in her fourth child, Jueco alleged. 

“In hindsight, that may have been my fault. Because I would get him mad by withdrawing sexual favors. That was my revenge,” she said, sobbing.

Jueco said she often reached out to a hotline for sexually abused and battered spouses. They would tell her to pack her things and leave her husband, but she couldn’t leave behind her children.

Then one day in July 2005, she shared her story to social-worker friends, who quickly mobilized the police to arrest the husband and rescue the kids. But one officer tended to believe her husband’s story that she was at fault for having lovers. He demanded to see her mobile phone to look at her contacts. 

“It just so happened that in that (same) hour, my older sister and brother sent me text messages saying ‘save yourself’ which helped prove I was domestically abused,” Jueco said.

The husband was then apprehended by police, jailed and later deported. He died seven years ago in his home country, Lebanon, but Jueco said she never got a formal apology, or a divorce or legal separation from him.

Rough legislative sailing ahead 

Rep. Edcel Lagman, the main author of the divorce bill, argues that it’s high time to pass the legislation. He argues that Filipino Muslims are in fact granted the right to divorce and remarry in keeping with their religious rights.

“The Philippine Catholic hierarchy must not be more popish than the Pope,” Lagman said in his defense of the proposed law. The Catholic Church has historically opposed moves to legalize divorce in the country.

“Divorce is not the monster which destroys marriages and families. It is marital abuse, infidelity and abandonment, among other mortal causes, which constitute the culprit,” he told BenarNews.

“In divorce proceedings, it is not a vibrant marriage but the cadaver of a dead marriage that lays [prostrate] before the Family Court,” Lagman said.

The bill, however, is in for a tough battle in the Senate, the upper chamber of Congress. 

Senate President Francis Escudero told foreign correspondents in September that he was neither for or against the divorce bill. Still, he suggested, it might be better to expand the grounds for nullifying a marriage.

The bill, as passed in the House of Representatives, expands on existing options such as annulment, legal separation and psychological incapacity.

But with just months to go before the Philippines goes into elections to choose new lawmakers, many politicians are wary of antagonizing the church which can use its pulpit to campaign against them.

“I am losing hope (for the bill to pass) in the Senate. But we have to show them that the fight continues,” Jueco said.

Jojo Riñoza in Manila contributed to this report.