CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION II

ATENEO SCHOOL OF LAW

Christina Gaviola
Therese Lucila
Ivy D. Patdu

The inviolability of marriage as a social institution contemplates a marriage that is freely entered into by a
man and woman who commit themselves to the fulfillment of obligations attendant to a married life. It is a
special contract of permanent union vested with state interest. 1 If any one of the essential requisites of
marriage is absent, or if the marriage is contracted against public policy, the marriage will be considered
null and void from the beginning. The Family Code, in addition, recognizes that a person legally
capacitated to enter marriage may do so but because of psychological reasons will be unable to fulfill his or
her marital obligations. In this latter case, the marriage will also be void by reason of psychological
incapacity. It is important to note that the law itself does not define what constitutes psychological
incapacity. The Family Code Revision Committee intended that the existence of psychological incapacity
be determined on a case-to-case basis.2

In Republic v. Court of Appeals and Molina, the Court laid down guidelines for the interpretation of Article
36 of the Family Code:
1. the burden of proof to show the nullity of the marriage belongs to the plaintiff and any doubt should
be resolved in favor of the existence and continuation of the marriage and against its dissolution and
nullity;
2. the root cause of the psychological incapacity must be medically or clinically identified, alleged in the
complaint, sufficiently proven by experts and clearly explained in the decision;
3. the incapacity must be proven to be existing at the time of the celebration of the marriage;
4. such incapacity must also be shown to be medically or clinically permanent or incurable;
5. such illness must be grave enough to bring about the disability of the party to assume the essential
obligations of marriage;
6. the essential marital obligations must be those embraced by Articles 68 up to 71 of the Family Code as
regards the husband and wife as well as Articles 220, 221 and 225 of the same Code in regard to
parents and their children; and,
7. interpretations given by the National Appellate Matrimonial Tribunal of the Catholic Church in the
Philippines, while not controlling or decisive, should be given great respect by our courts.3

The requirement that the root cause of psychological incapacity be sufficiently proven by experts has been
modified subsequently by a Supreme Court En Banc Resolution which provides that the complete facts
should allege the physical manifestations as are indicative of psychological incapacity but expert opinion
need not be alleged.4
DIRECT EXAMINATION OF PRIMARY WITNESS

This is a case brought against the husband [hereinafter, Carlos] by the wife [hereinafter,
Petitioner] for the nullity of marriage on the ground of psychological incapacity.

1
Family Code of the Philippines, Executive Order No. 209 (1988).
2
Salita v. Hon. Magtolis, 233 SCRA 100 (1994); Santos v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 112019, January 4,
1995; Republic v. Court of Appeals and Molina, 268 SCRA 198 (1997).
3
Republic v. CA and Molina, 268 SCRA 198 (1997).
4
Rule on Declaration of Absolute Nullity of Void Marriages and Annulment of Voidable Marriage,
Supreme Court En Banc Resolution A.M. 02-11-10-SC, §2 (2003).

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The Family Code provides:

Article 36. A marriage contracted by any party who, at the time of the celebration, was
psychologically incapacitated to comply with the essential marital obligations of
marriage, shall likewise be void even if such incapacity becomes manifest only after its
solemnization. (As amended by Executive Order 227)

Based on the foregoing discussion, Psychological Incapacity may be shown by proving the
following:
1. Physical manifestations as are indicative of psychological incapacity
2. Juridical Antecedence (existing at the time of the celebration of the marriage)
3. Incurability (Medically or clinically permanent or incurable)
4. Gravity, or must be grave enough to bring about the disability of the party to assume the
essential obligations of marriage
5. Essential marital obligations must be those embraced by Articles 68 up to 71 of the Family
Code as regards the husband and wife as well as Articles 220, 221 and 225 of the same Code
in regard to parents and their children

 Petitioner must first establish the fact of marriage, and the property
regime governing the marriage

 Petitioner must establish the physical manifestations that are

indicative of psychological incapacity

SUMMARY OF FACTS TO BE ESTABLISHED

Personal Circumstances of Petitioner
1. Name
2. Age
3. Place of Residence
4. Occupation/Profession
5. Others
Relationship with Respondent and Fact of Marriage
1. Date of Marriage
2. Place of Marriage
3. Property Regime governing Marriage5
Manifestations of Psychological Incapacity
I. Manifestations of Psychological Incapacity existing at the time of celebration of marriage
A. Facts about Respondent before he had a relationship with petitioner
B. Relationship of petitioner and respondent before the celebration of marriage
1. FAILURE TO PERFORM OBLIGATIONS TO LOVE AND RESPECT
PETITIONER OR TO OBSERVE FIDELITY
a. Lack of Loving Relationship, including sexual intimacy
b. Lack of Respect
c. Infidelity
2. FAILURE TO RENDER MUTUAL HELP AND SUPPORT
a. Incapability to responsibly handle finances (Irresponsible Spending)

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The property regime is important for purposes of determining property rights in case marriage is
dissolved. This direct examination is, however, limited to proving psychological incapacity.

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 b. Callous insensitivity or amusement in the psychological and physical
suffering of others
c. Lack of support, psychological coercion and failure to enjoy meaningful
recreation with petitioner
d. Self-destructive behavior of respondent
II. Incurability and Gravity of manifestations of Psychological Incapacity During the Marriage
including efforts of Petitioner to make marriage work
A. FAILURE TO PERFORM OBLIGATIONS TO LOVE AND RESPECT PETITIONER
OR TO OBSERVE FIDELITY
1. Lack of Loving Relationship, including sexual intimacy
a. Abnormal Sexual Relations even prior to celebration of marriage
b. Cruel, Demeaning and Aggressive Behavior towards spouse, family and
others
c. Constant Emotional, Psychological and even Physical Abuse towards
Petitioner
2. Lack of Respect
a. Interpersonally exploitative and haughty behavior without regard to sense of
decency or morality
b. Lack of empathy shown by utter lack of respect towards petitioner and
failure to appreciate the responsibilities required by a committed relationship
3. Infidelity
a. Impulsive and reckless behavior
b. Pattern of lying and cheating
B. FAILURE TO RENDER MUTUAL HELP AND SUPPORT
1. Incapability of responsibly handling finances
2. Callous insensitivity and amusement in psychological and physical suffering of
petitioner or others
3. Lack of physical and emotional support, psychological coercion and failure to
enjoy meaningful recreation with petitioner
4. Self-destructive behavior
* The facts to be established would revolve around proving psychological incapacity based on its
manifestations prior to celebration of marriage, its incurability and gravity in the context of
marital obligations as provided for in the Family Code. The manifestations were group based on
personality traits that are among the diagnostic criteria (DSM-III and IV) used by psychiatrists to
establish personality disorders.6
PHYSICAL MANIFESTATIONS AS ARE INDICATIVE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL
INCAPACITY

I. JURIDICAL ANTECEDENCE

A. FAILURE TO PERFORM OBLIGATIONS TO LOVE AND RESPECT PETITIONER OR TO

OBSERVE FIDELITY

LACK OF LOVING RELATIONSHIP INCLUDING SEXUAL INTIMACY

1. Abnormal Sexual Relations even prior to celebration of marriage

a. Having engaged in premarital sex, petitioner had an inkling of the sexual perversions of Carlos
even before the celebration of marriage
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For this case, we are looking at traits belonging to what psychiatrists define as “cluster B personality
disorders” which include narcissistic, borderline, anti-social and histrionic personality disorders. A
diagnosis of a personality disorder is one of the ways to establish psychological incapacity since personality
disorders begin to manifest during adolescence and early adulthood. Its development begins during
childhood. Personality Disorders prevent persons from developing functional interpersonal relationships.

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 b. He preferred, demanded and engaged in what is deemed by petitioner to be abnormal sexual
behaviour
(1) There was lack of intimacy during sexual intercourse, there was no foreplay and Carlos would
drink before and even during intercourse; in fact, he would even ask petitioner to pour alcohol
for him during sex
(2) He preferred receiving oral sex, instead of having intercourse.
(3) He would also make unusual requests like asking petitioner to act like his slave or wear a
maid’s uniform and he would also call her “bitch” or “whore” and demand her to do
everything he wanted, including even more degrading acts.
(4) Carlos found the female sexual organ unappealing; he would refuse to perform cunillingus,
nor touch the female sexual organ
c. Sex life worsened through time, becoming less frequent and Carlos consistently unable to provide
for the intimacy that petitioner needed
d. When already married to Carlos, petitioner said that the sister of Carlos told her a shocking story
of what said sister experienced when she was only 9 years old and Carlos was about 14 years old.
The sister confided to petitioner that before the latter married Carlos, Carlos used to molest said
sister as a child by touching and kissing her sexual organ when he slept beside her. His sister
made petitioner promise not to tell Carlos, but the petitioner could not keep it to herself. She
confronted Carlos but he denied it and accused his sister of trying to ruin their marriage.

2. Cruel, Demeaning and Aggressive Behaviour towards spouse, family and others
a. Carlos easily loses temper especially when he wasdrinking; he would insult the waiters and offend
the waitress at the bars.
b. Carlos often shouted at everyone. He would shout at his mother, curding her often. He especially
did not hesitate to shout at the maids, his employees, and people who “served” him or which he
considered “low class” – waiters, waitresses, sales people, or security guards.

3. Constant Emotional, Psychological and even Physical Abuse towards Petitioner

a. Carlos would shout at petitioner and on one occasion even slapped her. Afterwards, he would
always say sorry.
b. On one occasion, Carlos shoved a pizza on petitioner’s face, pressing it for a few seconds as
though suffocating her with her eyeglasses painfully imbedding on her nose. Even if her nose bled
and there was swelling, Carlos refused to take petitioner to the hospital but instead drove away to
supposedly visit his horses in Polo Club.

LACK OF RESPECT

1. Interpersonally exploitative and haughty behaviour without regard to sense of decency or morality
a. Carlos would tell petitioner of the parties (nights of carnal pleasures) with friends, who those
friends of his were, and what they did with the prostitutes.
b. Carlos would tell petitioner graphic stories about how he had sex with prostitutes

2. Lack of empathy shown by utter lack of respect towards petitioner and failure to appreciate the
responsibilities required by a committed relationship
a. Carlos seemed to have lewd comments about women. Even before petitioner and Carlos got
married, Carlos would refer to a group of girls and comments on how it would be nice to have sex
with all of them
b. While they were already in a relationship, Carlos would not do anything even if his friends would
tease him about other women in front of petitioner
c. On occasion, Carlos would grab petitioner’s breasts in front of everyone

INFIDELITY

1. Impulsive and reckless behaviour even prior to marriage

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 a. Out of 100 or so women he had sex with, only three were not prostitutes
b. Carlos would also bring allow a pimp to bring prostitutes to his house; the pimp would bring
about two or three girls for Carlos to choose from, and Carlos would choose pretty girls with a
“more than enough” bust line. Sometimes, he chose two.
c. Carlos also threw frequent parties at home for his friends – both bachelors and married men.
They were invited to his house to enjoy a night of carnal pleasure--Alcohol, food, drugs (only
Marijuana, according to him), and women.

2. Pattern of lying and cheating observed even prior to celebration of marriage

a. Girls would call his house very often and petitioner would hear Carlos would ask the girls not to
call his house but his office instead. One of the callers was named Stella who, according to Carlos
was a young dentist he frequently saw just a few months before petitioner and who would have
sex with Carlos for money.
b. Petitioner would stress importance of fidelity but whenever confronted, Carlos would get angry
accusing petitioner of being paranoid and extremely jealous. Carlos would be promise to be
faithful and petitioner would believe him.
c. Whenever petitioner would claim that Carlos was loyal, there will be bewilderment in the faces of
his friends.
d. Carlos would often disappear for long hours. On one occasion, petitioner was supposed to meet
with him for dinner but it wasn’t until morning that Carlos came home. That night petitioner got
worried when Carlos wasn’t home by 11PM and he kept insisting that she had no business calling
his attention about drinking and for making his family panic. He constantly lied about seeing other
women or prostitutes until two years later, when Carlos admitted that from Lipa, he went straight
to a massage parlor, and had sex with a prostitute there.

B. FAILURE TO RENDER MUTUAL HELP AND SUPPORT

1. Incapable of responsible handling of finances – even prior to marriage, Carlos would already spend too
much; on average, Carlos would spend around P30,000 a month for alcohol.

2. Callous insensitivity and amusement in psychological and physical suffering of others

a. Carlos becomes sexually aggressive when drinking.
b. Carlos would be inconsiderate with petitioner’s food, eating her diet food and never
compensating her for it.

3. Lack of support and psychological coercion

a. Carlos would invite friends to drink until 2 or 3 AM talking about dirty women and sometimes
even forcing petitioner to join them, exposing her to the teasing of the other men and talk about
sex and prostitutes.
b. Carlos loved the night life and would often force petitioner to accompany him whether the latter
wanted to or not.

4. Self-destructive behaviour
a. As mentioned, Carlos had a drinking problem. It was not immediately evident to petitioner
because she was unsure whether Carlos’ drinking rose to the level of a problem and the parents of
Carlos said that he did not really drink that much.
b. Carlos had sexual relationships with prostitutes or call girls and in fact showed a preference for
them even prior to celebration of marriage.

B. PSYCHOLOGICAL INCAPACITY DURING THE MARRIAGE

 INCURABILITY, MEDICALLY OR CLINICALLY PERMANENT OR INCURABLE
 GRAVITY, MUST BE GRAVE ENOUGH TO BRING ABOUT THE DISABILITY OF THE PARTY TO ASSUME THE
ESSENTIAL OBLIGATIONS OF MARRIAGE

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A. FAILURE TO PERFORM OBLIGATIONS TO LOVE AND RESPECT PETITIONER OR TO
OBSERVE FIDELITY

LACK OF LOVING RELATIONSHIP INCLUDING SEXUAL INTIMACY

1. Abnormal Sexual Relations

a. From the abnormal sexual relations with Carlos that petitioner experienced prior to marriage, their
sex life went from bad to worse during marriage.
b. During the marriage, petitioner and Carlos had sex sparingly. The occasional sex would usually a
night of long and tiring hours of petitioner stimulating his male organ by hand or by mouth to
enable it get hard. The actual intercourse never lasted long.
c. Petitioner tried to improve their sex life to no avail. Carlos, however was uninterested or
impotent. Sometimes, they would lie naked for hours while she tried to make him “hard”. Most of
the time, they never reached the intercourse stage because his organ wouldn’t cooperate, or she
just lost all desires and experienced arm cramps and locked-jaw.
d. Petitioner took efforts to entice and tease Carlos to try and improve their sexual relationship but
Carlos rejected these efforts and refused any help.
(1) Sometimes, when petitioner walked around naked in front of Carlos, he would get “hard” but
would still not want to “do it”. Often, she would just give him oral sex. After a while, she
already refused to do even this because after trying, Carlos still failed to give her the intimacy
she desired.
(2) At first, she would feel bad, rejected, insecure and embarrassed. She tried to figure-out why
he wasn’t interested anymore. She would even buy herbal sex medicines and force him to take
them. She also told him to see a doctor but he obviously didn’t go.

2. Cruel, Demeaning and Aggressive Behaviour towards spouse, family and others
a. He would lose temper easily and verbally abuse other people, most especially the employees and
help
(1) Carlos had created an environment where shouting became part of his everyday life. Hearing
him shouting at home at the help or at someone over the phone became the norm that
petitioner had to live with throughout their married life. Carlos shouted at everyone: his
mother, sister, brothers, friends, help, employees, the petitioner.
(2) He especially did not seem to make an effort to control his temper when dealing with the
maids, the driver, his grooms, his secretary and to people who he just felt were “no smarter
nor better than dogs” as he put it. He loved to call his maids “stupida”, “tonta”, and “idiota”
and the driver “tanga”, “gago” and “stupido”. Aside from those degrading nicknames, he
often cursed at them saying, “Putang ina mo!” or “Punyeta ka talaga!”.
(3) He would shout at help, mother, sister, brothers or friends: When he lost his temper with
Petitioner, or with his mother, sister, brothers or friends, he cursed in English and Spanish.
His favorites were “Fuck you!”, “Bitch!”, “Coño!”, “Cabron!”, “Hoder!” and “Fuck”-this,
“Fuck”-that!
b. Petitioner witnessed how mother of Carlos treated the help in the same manner. Though her curses
to them were not as graphic, she too called them degrading names, and easily lost her patience
with them. Given the environment that Carlos grew up in and the environment he was now
creating, his disposition only seemed to get worse as time went buy and he would “raise hell” at
the slightest provocation. Eventually, even petitioner began to pick-up on the using of curse
words.
c. During the marriage, the aggressiveness of Carlos became even more evident and have increased
to the point that he would make a scene and act unreasonably. On one occasion, in the lobby of a
hotel, Carlos raised his voice and scolded waitress and mait re d’ because the cashier was taking a
while and couldn’t process the AMEX credit card that Carlos had already given earlier. Petitioner
paid for the bill in cash but she was humiliated and embarrassed when, after following Carlos to
the lobby, that there he still was yelling at the cashier. His voice was echoing all over the lobby
that everyone was looking at him. Finally, after about an hour, hotel security personnel began to

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 approach Carlos and tried talking him into leaving the hotel. Carlos all the more began to yell at
them. Petitioner got scared and the employees began asking her if she was okay. She got even
more embarrassed, and she walked out of the hotel to where car was parked.
d. Carlos, however, became mean and cruel only to those who would not stand up to him. On one
occasion, a security guard in the former Trellis Restaurant in Fort Bonifacio yelled back at Carlos
when he insisted to park in a reserved parking area. When Carlos started saying “Putang ina
naman!” the guard grabbed his gun and yelled at Carlos. Carlos got scared and just drove off.
Carlos did not respect other people. He was over-confident and he believed that most people were
below him. But once one of these people stood up to him, he would be the first to apologize or
back off. He was also a coward.

3. Constant Emotional, Psychological and even Physical Abuse towards Petitioner

a. Instead of a loving relationship, petitioner was subjected to physical abuse.
(1) The physical abuse first experienced by the petitioner in the hands of Carlos prior to marriage
occurred more often. Even when she did not fight back, Carlos would slapped petitioner on
at least three occasions.
(2) They had physical quarrels where even petitioner lost her temper and threw things or would
punch Carlos. This would happen because she felt hopeless and found that that was the only
way to make Carlos listen or feel her pain. Instead, Carlos retaliates by slapping petitioner or
pusihing her and pinning her down on the bed.
b. The constant verbal and psychological abuse inflicted by Carlos on petitioner made her feel
insecure, unloved and prevented her from functioning normally.
(1) Carlos made petitioner believe that she deserved to be yelled at, and to be unloved by her
family. He would always say that petitioner was a bitch like her mother, and that no other
man would tolerate and love her.
(2) He would particularly begin this “brainwashing” whenever he is being confronted about his
women or drinking.
(3) Even after being yelled and always being made to feel like she was at fault, petitioner would
end up giving in and apologizing. She would even cry and kiss him all over telling him how
much she loved him and that she forgave him. Despite these efforts on the part of petitioner,
Carlos did not change and instead continued subjecting her to abuse.
(4) The constant physical, psychological and verbal abuse led Petitioner to regress into a state
where she would hide in her closet, or lock herself in the bathroom crying on the floor by the
corner in the dark. She even became more pathetic as she would cradle and hug her teddy
bear crying and singing to it, clinging to it for love and sympathy which she never got from
Carlos.

LACK OF RESPECT

1. Interpersonally exploitative and haughty behaviour without regard to sense of decency or morality
a. Carlos would flirt with other women in front of wife. When he drank, he became worse and really
loses all inhibitions.
b. The constant drinking of Carlos and his refusal to even just try to change has caused much
embarrassment to petitioner and has prevented the couple from enjoying nights out together.
(1) Petitioner would refuse to go out at night with Carlos to a bar or disco because the way he
acted in public when he got drunk was causing the former much shame and humiliation.
(2) Whenever they did go out, the evening mostly ended up with them fighting, or with petitioner
crying.

2. Lack of empathy shown by utter lack of respect towards petitioner and Failure to appreciate the
responsibilities required by a committed relationship
a. Despite all efforts such as trying to monitor Carlos’ “drinking”, diluting his drink, trying to be
cool and tolerant and even by trying to drink herself, Carlos refused to change. He would promise
that he would cut down but never did.

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 (1) On a quiet night at home, Carlos drank 3-4 “doubles” of scotch, regardless of how much he
drank during the day or after work. When his friends were visiting at home, he would drink
about an entire bottle of scotch all to himself or half a bottle of scotch and a couple of beers.
(2) Even when she reasoned with him on how alcohol was running his and their lives by stressing
on health issues and his drunken behavior, Carlos would never promise to fully quit drinking
by justifying that drinking was his only vice.
(3) Eventually, petitioner got tired and stopped pestering Carlos about his drinking.
b. Carlos continued to invite friends to his house to drink even if petitioner objected.

INFIDELITY

1. Impulsive and reckless behaviour

a. While claiming fidelity, friends would continue teasing Carlos about his women.
b. Whenever petitioner and Carlos were out, Carlos would eye call girl types and some of them
would even greet him with, “Carlos, remember me?” Carlos would deny knowing these girls or
claim that it was because of his past reputation.
c. Petitioner became increasingly paranoid and insecure as a result. The behaviour of Carlos has
prevented petitioner from living a normal married life. There were times when she would drive
alone along Makati Avenue and Burgos trying to see if she could catch Carlos but she never did.
d. On one occasion, Carlos was the one who chanced upon her. He got very angry because he
suspected that she was trying to track him down. Later, he just kept on stressing how much he
hated it when petitioner would drive one of his Mercedes Benz out of the Forbes area, especially
at night, because they didn’t have insurance. The petitioner was only allowed to drive the box-type
Nissan Sentra out of Forbes Park.

2. Pattern of lying and cheating

a. During the marriage, Carlos continued to have secret escapades where he would disappear over
several hours.
b. It was only much later when petitioner chanced upon his American Express billings that reflected
a lot of charges for a particular massage parlor. Eventually, Carlos admitted that he continued to
see prostitutes even during the marriage. Carlos also admitted that the reason why he would
sometimes disappear or come home late was because he would go to the massage parlor.

B. FAILURE TO RENDER MUTUAL HELP AND SUPPORT

1. Incapable of responsible handling of finances

a. On one occasion, when petitioner and Carlos were gambling in the Casino Filipino, petitioner won
P5000. Even if she did not want to, Carlos made her bet it all so that she only earned P500.
b. Carlos would spend too much on alcohol. The expenses they had for going out was in the range of
40,000 to 50,000 a month, most of it spent on alcohol.

2. Callous insensitivity and amusement in psychological and physical suffering of others

a. Carlos often had no concern for the well-being of petitioner.
(1) After the incident in the lobby of the hotel where Carlos had made a scene, petitioner went
out to wait for him in the parking lot because she was already embarassed.
(2) Carlos came dashing out of the hotel, but even when he saw petitioner, he went straight into
his car and drove off, leaving her. It was only after a while and when petitioner was about to
hail a cab that Carlos came back.
(3) He did not feel any remorse for what he did but instead they ended up fighting on the way
home. Upon reaching their house, Carlos just dropped her off and drove somewhere to
where his horses allegedly were.
b. Carlos was very insensitive and inconsiderate even when petitioner was already suffering.

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 (1) On one occasion, petitioner tried to use reverse psychology to make Carlos stop drinking,
She tried drinking but because she was not used to drinking too much, she got drunk and
ended up vomiting for the whole night. She asked Carlos to bring her to the hospital but
Carlos only told her to go to sleep.
(2) The following day, petitioner kept on vomiting that she vomited stomach acid and some green
stuff but Carlos still would not take her to the hospital. and up to the next day. Carlos didn’t
help her nor brought her to the hospital.
(3) Petitioner called up her family doctor, Dra. Montalban, who hasn’t heard from me since I was
probably 10 years old, and told her the bitter truth. The doctor prescribed medicine and
advised that if she continued vomiting, tshe should go to the hospital. Fortunately she felt
better after taking the medicine although she still felt sick the rest of the day.
(4) Instead of feeling any concern, Carlos just found the entire incident amusing. He would
remind petitioner that it was a lesson for her to learn from. He even commented on how the
scotch bottle she drank was wasted.
c. Cruelty to Children
(1) On one incident, a couple of 4 year old kids loitered in the backyard of Carlos and petitioner.
At first, petitioner was impressed to see Carlos talking to them but she saw him handing over
the kids a couple of “sili labuyo” and encouraging them to eat the chilies claiming they were
sweet candy. Had petitioner not intervened, one of the kids would have eaten one. Petitioner
scolded Carlos but he only laughed, finding the incident funny.
(2) The incident made petitioner really think thoroughly about Carlos’ capability of being a
father. She has experienced people who have short tempers who expressed it by shouting but
she has never experienced cruelty from anyone in my life the way Carlos made her experience
it whether it may have been directly done to me, or done to others.
(3) Even after trying really hard to make him understand how cruel he could be, he couldn’t
understand and merely insisted that petitioner was over-acting or imagining things.
d. Cruelty to Animals
(1) After a while, petitioner noticed that Carlos began doing weird things to the fan doves she
gave him. He would give them a bath and blow dried their feathers. They did not fly, so he
would take them out of their cage to walk around the lawn.
(2) Even if petitioner warned him and asked him not to do that to the doves especially because of
the hungry cats roaming around, Carlos did not care. The doves eventually got eaten up one
day.
(3) Rather than feeling remorse, Carlos did the same with the second batch of doves petitioner
gave him and they got ravaged too.

3. Lack of support and psychological coercion

a. Carlos would insist on doing things he wanted to do but refuses or is incapable of enjoying the
things that petitioner enjoys.
(1) Carlos did not spend any time with friends of petitioner. He could not enjoy any other
activities with petitioner other than going to bars or discos.
(2) Carlos couldn’t sit still in movies. He would end up walking around the theater every twenty
minutes. As for shopping or hanging out in the mall sort of thing, or mingling with my
friends, Carlos was perpetually absent. I tried going shopping with him a couple of times but
he would end up shouting at the Sales people.. He couldn’t stand walking around malls
because he got edgy when there were too many people around him.
(3) Petitioner would end up doing things she liked, whether alone, with her friends, or with the
maid. Carlos and petitioner spent less and less time doing things together.
b. During the first few months of their marriage, Carlos and the petitioner would walk around Forbes
together. They did this less and less because Carlos always came home from work late. Those
walks lasted for only an hour a couple of days a week for about four months during their marriage.
Petitioner ended up walking around the Polo field alone at night instead. Those walks were some
of the more pleasant times she had with him but they did not last long.
c. Eventually, petitioner started to realize that she was not having any fun with Carlos anymore.

4. Self-destructive behavior

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a. Carlos began showing signs of impulsive and reckless behavior even prior to marriage with
petitioner when he showed signs of a drinking problem. This became even more evident during
the marriage when the problem became worse.
b. He lied about continuing to see prostitutes. In fact, he used his AMEX card and frequented
massage parlors during the marriage while being unwilling or unable to share sexual intimacy with
wife.
c. Eventually, things got worse because Carlos started exhibiting unusual behavior and was
subsequently found to have started using metamphetamine regularly.
(1) A few months into the marriage petitioner I began to notice strange things in the behavior of
Carlos. He became a clean freak taking frequent showers and baths more than once a day
using very hot water. His bathroom time became unreasonable spending up to 4 hours and
merely attributing it to alleged constipation. After a while, he bought all these dental tools for
his teeth.
(2) He would have the maids clean the house until not a speck of dust was left. Sometimes, he
would wake up 4 am and wake up along with the maids to have a general cleaning.
(3) He started having irregular sleeping hours. He would sleep around 4 to 5 am and still wake
up at 7 am to go to work. Sometimes, he didn’t sleep at all, then the following days, he slept
throughout the entire day. According to him, his biological clock shifts because of stress from
work. Sometimes, he would be found working on some computation on his desk.
(4) His temper got worse but mostly directed to the maids and the driver. He fired his driver Juan
who was his drivers for years all because the latter was an El Shaddai fanatic. He would either
fire our maids or they would leave every two weeks to a month until the agency ran out of
maids to send to them already.
(5) Carlos habits became worse and suspicious as time went by. He would always go out at night
for an hour just wearing house clothes. He always claimed to be visiting his horses in Polo
Club but he wouldn’t want to take petitioner along. He played Polo and rode his horses less
and less.
(6) He also started urinating into the pots of petitioner’s plants. So after a while, her plants died.
(7) Carlos also began avoiding social and family functions.
(8) Carlos exhibited paranoid behavior. He would tell stories about people talking bad about
him, or about his enemies whom he couldn’t really name.
d. It was only later that petitioner discovered that Carlos was using shabu. She discovered it while
they were in Cebu to attend the wedding of friends. In the clutch bag of Carlos, he saw his
passport case containing a glass tube, a small alcohol burner, some folded sheets of aluminum
wrap, and small sachets of white tiny rocky crystals. At first, petitioner couldn’t believe that
Carlos would take drugs. She panicked and flushed all the Shabu down the toilet. She woke up
Carlos saying that someone must have planted the drugs in his passport case. Carlos, who was in
drunken stupor, told her to shut up because the Shabu were worth P20,000. The confrontation
ended with Carlos pulling her and slapping her. She eventually found another sachet of shabu and
tried it herself. Carlos got angry when he found out that she took shabu that they left immediately
leaving petitioner no choice. They ended up no longer attending the wedding.
e. Prior to discovering that Carlos was using shabu, petitioner noticed that Conching, one of the
maids, was acting suspiciously but that Carlos eventually dismissed said maid. A woman named
Ellen also started appearing in their home. Carlos told her that she was selling him black market
dollars and he would eventually entertain her in their basement. Carlos later admitted that
Conching used to buy shabu for Carlos and that Ellen was actually his pusher.
f. Upon arriving from Cebu, petitioner and Carlos constantly fought about the shabu. Carlos
claimed that he was merely experimenting with shabu and he swore to that he wasn’t an addict and
therefore would stop. Petitioner told him that if he didn’t stop, she would take it too. Carlos
promised he would stop. However, a few days later, petitioner walked in on Carlos taking his
Shabu again. They got into a violent fight. Carlos admitted that he used shabu occasionally before
he even went out with petitioner but that as time went by, his addiction to it grew. Apparently, the
“high” of his alcohol wasn’t enough anymore. He needed something else. The Shabu allowed him
to drink more than normal and still gave him energy for work. Carlos said that he spent about
P20,000 to 50,000 a month on it.

10
 g. Petitioner earnestly asked him to stop but Carlos said that he couldn’t do it immediately.
Petitioner told the mother of Carlos and even tried staying with him in hopes that he would
change. After about two months, Carlos was not doing anything to stop his addiction. On the day
of his birthday, petitioner woke up to Carlos scolding the maids because they did not clean-up all
the flies in the dining area. When Carlos discovered a dead fly in the corner behind one of our
house plants, he grabbed the broom from their maid, Juliet, and gestured to hit her with it while his
other hand grabbed her by her hair at her nape. Petitioner was so shocked. Throughout the entire
day, she kept on seriously thinking about leaving Carlos. That early evening, Carlos made
conplainant get dressed because they were going to go out that night to celebrate his Birthday.
After she got dressed, he commented that he wanted petitioner to wear a headband. When
petitioner refused, he said that he wouldn’t take her with him. Petitioner told him to leave without
her. He pretended to leave her and drove around the Polo Club. When he came back after thirty
minutes, petitioner already packed and she told him that he was leaving him for good. All he did
was laughed and say, “Sure, you always say that but you never do!”, then he left.
h. At around 1:00 am, petitioner left with the maid. She went to the airport while the maid went on to
a relative’s house. By 7 am, petitioner was in Roxas City.

QUESTION AND ANSWER7

We call Rita Cruz-Alvarez.

Q: Would you state your full and last name?

A: Rita Cruz-Alvarez.

Q: Where are you living at present?

A: I am living in 123 San Juan St., Bel-Air Village, Makati.

Q: How old are you?

A: I am 27 years old?

Q: Are you presently working, Mrs. Alvarez?

A: I am presently unemployed. I used to work as a self-employed real estate broker before I got
married.

Q: Do you know the respondent in this case?

A: Yes.

Q: Why do you know him?

A: Respondent CARLOS ALVAREZ is my husband.

Q: When were you married?

7
The scope of direct examination is limited to the testimony on psychological incapacity and excludes
division of property. The assumption is that the property division has been settled during pre-trial or is
reserved for another hearing date.

11
A: We were married only by civil rites in 1994. We were supposed to get married in church but I
guess our union was not meant to be blessed.

Q: Is this your marriage contract?

A: Yes.

Copy of the Certificate of Marriage is requested to be received as evidence and marked as

Exhibit “A”.

Q: Did you enter into any pre-nuptial agreement?

A: No.

Q: What kind of property regime, if any, did you and respondent agree upon to govern your
marriage?
A: We did not agree on any specific kind of property regime.

Q: How many common children do you and respondent have, if any?

A: We have none.

Q: Since when have you know the respondent?

A: I have known respondent since 1993.

Q: What happened when you and respondent met?

A: I immediately liked him. We became friends and eventually started a relationship that same
year. Five months into our relationship, we started living together.

Q: When did you become friends?

A: One week after I met him. Carlos and I were invited to a wedding.

Q: What happened during this wedding?

A: During the reception, we were seated one table away from a table where about eight female
friends of ours sat. These girls were all giggling and joking amongst each other. Carlos first asked
me why I wasn’t joining in with them. I answered that even if some of them were friends of mine,
I wasn’t really that “close” to them. And besides, I wanted to be with him. He commented after,
“Gosh, it must be so nice to have sex with all of them!”

Q: What did you feel when he said this?

A: I immediately got angry. But he kept on insisting that he was joking and that “the bottle was
the one talking”. For some weird reason, I remember making “friends” with him soon after that
incident. I should have known what kind of man he was as early as then.

Q: You said that you should have known what kind of man he was as early as then. What do you
mean?
A: Even before I married Carlos, I knew that he was different from the “norm” both positively
and negatively. I did not expect those negative traits, though, to get any worse.

Q: Different?
A: From our very first date, he already told me how much he loved to drink. I would say that
Johnny Walker was his bestfriend. Carlos always stacked up on bottles of Johnny Walker Red or
Black. He often also had some bottles of beer in the fridge. Occasionally, he would drink vodka,
gin, etc. But scotch was his favorite amongst all.

12
Q: Would you say that he had a drinking problem?
A: He insisted that he wasn’t an alcoholic like his brother, Mario. But he drank all the time. He
loved to go to bars at night to drink. He would even drink at work, discreetly thanks to his
drinking flask. When he came home, he would drink before, while and after the dinner, and
before bedtime. His friends would often drop by the house for some drinks. I would ask his
friends if Carlos was to be categorized as an alcoholic, since I wasn’t quite sure what an alcoholic
really was. Some would say that he wasn’t, some said that he was a “borderline alcoholic”. His
mother said that she worried often about his drinking, but still did not consider him an alcoholic.
So I thought that he just drank a little too much.

Q: You are saying that he frequently took alcoholic beverages. Is this a problem for you?
A: Many of our fights were caused by his love for the bottle. Carlos even told me that he would
spend around P30 thousand a month, just an alcohol. Also, I hated the way he acted. We even
fought often in public because of something nasty he said or did while he was drunk.

Q: Do you mean that he changes when he is drunk?

A: I preferred Carlos sober, because when he drank, his negative traits got worse. He would lose
his temper easily. He would insult the waiters and offend the waitress at the bars. He also
become sexually aggressive to the point of my disgust. He enjoyed grabbing my breasts in front
of everyone.

Q: How did these make you feel?

A: I felt that he did not respect me. He didn’t care about what I wanted. I did not really enjoy
were his drinking sprees with his friends whom he would invite over to our house without
notifying me. They drank to their hearts desire, up to 2-3 a.m. constantly talking about dirty
women. All the more hated it when he would force me to join them. What I didn’t like about it
was that I was trying my hardest to keep Carlos away from alcohol, and most of his friends just
endlessly talked about prostitutes, sex and teased me about it endlessly. I would always end up
arguing with one of his friends about this matter.

Q: Did he always force you to join him even if you did not want to?
A: 70% of our recreation time together was going out to bars, restaurants, discos, nightclubs and
parties in the evenings. Carlos really seemed to love the “night life”. He brought me with him
almost always, whether or not I was up to it. 30% of the time I could only strongly suspect that
while I was at home waiting for him, or while I was in Polo Club exercising, he was either
drinking away alone or with company.

Q: Based on what you just told us, did you consider, at that time, that his drinking was a serious
problem?
A: I believed that his problem was his attitude. I had no knowledge about the “technicalities”
behind alcoholism. I just blamed this vice of his on the fact that he was spoiled. He loved to
drink, he could afford to drink, therefore, nothing and no one got in the way of him and his bottle.
Because I did not take this vice too seriously, I thought that I would eventually be able to help
him stop or at least cut-down. What I didn’t know was that his alcoholism was just “the tip of the
iceberg”, as I later discovered during our marriage.

Q: My next question is a little bit personal. You talked about his sexual aggressiveness. And
that he did disgusting things when he was drunk. Do you think that his problem is all associated
with alcohol?

13
A: I think that it is more than the alcohol. I really did not at first believe that he had a drinking
problem. For one thing, apart from alcohol, he had such a “dirty” past.

Q: A dirty past?
A: Carlos admitted to me that out of 100 or so women he had sex with, only three, including me,
were not prostitutes. He would even tell me graphic stories about how he had sex with them.

Q: He would tell you graphic sexual stories?

A: Yes. He told me that these prostitutes would be brought to his house by a pimp. If he were the
only customer, the pimp would bring about two or three girls for Carlos to choose from. If the
“call girl” was pretty enough, and had a “more than enough” bust line, she would be the choice.
Sometimes, he chose two. Carlos even told me about the frequent parties he gave at home for his
friends – both bachelors and married men. From about two to six of his friends would be invited
to his house to enjoy a night of carnal pleasures. Alcohol, food, drugs--only Marijuana, according
to him, and women were all on the menu, so to speak. Carlos would even tell me who those
friends of his were, and what they did with the prostitutes. Apparently, Carlos preferred
receiving oral sex, instead of having intercourse.

Q: Those things you said are a little bit shocking. Why did you continue seeing him?
A: When I became Carlos girlfriend, he swore to me that he wasn’t seeing any of those girls
anymore, and that he never would again. He would always try to reassure me by saying “the past
is past”.

Q: Did you believe him?

A: I wanted to believe him. Although there were just too many circumstances that led me to
doubt his fidelity, or at the very least his future fidelity. These girls would call his house very
often; many times of which I answered the telephone. I would overhear Carlos telling these girls
to stop calling at home because he already had a girlfriend who was always in his house. I also
heard him one time tell some girl to call him in his office instead. There was a woman named
Stella who, according to Carlos was a young dentist who he frequently saw just a few months
before me. I even answered the phone one time when she called. She apparently would have sex
with him also for money.
I admit that I was “blind” to see the bewilderment in his friends’ faces whenever I would proudly
tell them about Carlos’ loyalty to me. Carlos had a few friends. They would tease Carlos to other
women in front of me. They would also tease him bout his past “kalokohans”. I would get so
upset, to the point of freaking-out sometimes in front of them. I not only would feel disrespected,
but I strongly felt their constant teasing might make Carlos miss his torrid past.

Q: Do you think that he ever stopped seeing these girls?

A: Whenever I confronted Carlos about these girls, he would get angry at me, saying that I was
paranoid and extremely jealous. I would always make him promise me that he would never
cheat on me. I stressed-out to him that fidelity is very important to me. I grew up seeing my Dad
cheat on my Mom. I dreaded going through the same pains as she did. But I really told him that
unlike my Mom, who pretended she didn’t know about it, I would leave him the moment I found
out. And Carlos did promise to be faithful to me, all the time. The more he would promise me, the
more I believed him, therefore, the more I loved him.

Q: Do you think that he was lying to you?

A: I may never really know about all the secret escapades Carlos did behind my back. All I know
are the facts that led me to eventually suspect dome “foul play”. In fact, there were was one
incident that occursed early on in our relationship which I should have from better to be “monkey

14
business”. But because I was ignorant and too trusting, I did not see. I was still living in Bel-Air
with my parents but I wanted to stay-over with Carlos that night. So I told my mother that I was
going to sleep over at a friend’s house. Carlos knew early that day that I was going to his house
around at a dinner time. Carlos supposed to be in his family farm in Lipa City that morning till
afternoon. He promised that he would be late cause of the traffic and that he would be coming
home around 9 p.m. By that time, he still wasn’t home. The hours passed, and I started getting
very worried for not only was he not calling me anymore, but my imagination started running
wild already. Kidnapping was all I could think of especially Carlos was using his Mercedes Benz
in a province with only his driver, Juan, as his companion. By 11 p.m., I panicked already and
called up Mario. He also got worried, so he immediately told his mom about my call. Carlos’
mom panicked too. Before long, she and her brothers were with me in Carlos’ house holding
vigil. They even called up Cong. Ralph Recto to look for Carlos in Lipa. We were all so frantic,
so Carlos’ uncles volunteered to go to Lipa to look for Carlos. I had lost track of exact time when
one of Carlos’ uncles and Mario called us to report what they discovered, but I remember it being
not so many hours from the time they left the house, maybe only one and a half hours. I even
remember commenting how fast they could’ve driven there. Apparently, according to Carlos’
uncle, they found Carlos and his driver inside the car parked in their farm asleep in drunkenness
“with gin bottles scattered all over the car floor”.

Q: What did you feel?

A: I was angry. But I was also worried, and I missed him a lot. Carlos’ mom offered to make me
sleep over in her house until Carlos came home. I accepted, for I didn’t want to go to my house
because I wanted to see Carlos first. The very next morning, Carlos woke us up still wearing the
clothes he wore the night before. He apparently just arrived. When his mom left us alone to talk, I
immediately scolded him, and he likewise yelled at me. He kept in insisting that I had no business
calling his attention about drinking and for making his family panic. But I also remember him not
being able to gave me a detailed story of what really had happened. Part of me could smell
something “fishy”, but part of me just wanted to take his word for it. I, of course, succumbed to
his “word”.

Q: Did you ever find out what really happened?

A: Two years later, Carlos admitted to me that from Lipa, he went straight to a massage parlor,
and had sex with a prostitute there. His uncle and Mario just went there since they apparently
knew that that’s where Carlos often “disappeared” to. That’s where they found him. No wonder
their supposedly travelling time was short. I should have known as early as then. I swear that if I
knew the truth then I would have broke-up with him that day very easily. If only someone from
his side tried at least to let me know what Carlos was up to.

Q: Did this happen again?

A:There were some times when Carlos would do similar “disappearing acts” which we fought
about, but I sadly was unable to prove my suspicions. He later admitted them to me, but the truth
came all too late.

Q: Before you got married, do you think that he appreciated the importance of fidelity?
A: Though suspicious, most of the time I ended up believing in him. Carlos’ mother would
reassure me that he was loyal to me. According to her, she would hear good comments from her
friends that ever since Carlos started to “see” me, he stopped going out with these “call girls”. His
uncles, would tease Carlos, in my presence, that Carlos can’t “fool-around” because he has a
guard, “bantay” named Rita watching his every move.

15
Q: I know that this is hard for you. So far you’ve told us how Carlos seemed to have a problem
with women and alcohol. Can you tell us some more what he was like as a boyfriend or partner
as far as you can remember?
A: There were many other situations which I experienced with him that showed that he had a
problem, But as with all of them, I forgave him soon after. Carlos would have this remarkable
way of not only saying “sorry”, but also of making me believe that I deserved his treatment In
fact, after a while, I had become accustomed to his cruelty. I never forgot those incidents, though.

Q: Can you tell us about these incidents?

A: Carlos had the temper of a tiger! As early as then I already experienced his short-temper which
he displayed by shouting all the time. He would shout at everyone, even his mother, curding her
often. He especially did not hesitate to shout at the maids, his employees, and people who
“served” him or which he considered “low class” – waiters, waitresses, sales people, security
guards. In fact, I hardly remember him even talking respectfully to any of them. He immediately
would talk to them in a very condescending manner. If they did not give him what he demanded
for, or if they acted, a little bit stupid, he would shout at them right away, calling them “idiota”,
“stupido”, in front of their very faces and in front of other people.

Q: Did you consider at that time that his shouting was a sign of a deeper problem?
A: No matter how much I tried to convince him to soften-up to others, he just continued raging
mad at them. Sometime, I would ask his mother why Carlos had such an uncontrollable temper.
According to her, he’s just a little deaf, and is used to the Spanish way of conversing in a very
loud and intimidating tone. The more and more I spent time with his uncles, I did see that
“Spanish way” was really the medium of conversion amongst themselves, but I noticed that
among Carlos’ cousins, he was only one who spoke like his uncles. His defense to that is because
he is the eldest in his generation, therefore considered by his uncles to be amongst them.

Q: Did Carlos also shout at you?

A: Carlos would shout at me quite often, but I would either shout back at him or cry to him. I
noticed that for a time, he controlled his temper towards me. I clearly remember so many of the
times he was cruel to me, and to others.

Q: Did you tell him how you felt?

A: One time we were about five months into our relationship as “live-in” partners, when I got
angry that he invited one of his friends to our house again for a couple of drinks. I refused to join
so as if I excused myself and went upstairs. Later on, when his friend left, Carlos called me to
come down to be with him. When I came down, I wanted to show him that I was still upset about
his friends visit and his frequent drinking sprees with his friends. So Carlos and I started to get
into a fight. Finally, I sat down on the sofa while I cried. Carlos asked me why I was freaking-out
for something he felt was so petty, and why I have been acting irritable to him the past few days.
I finally told him, “I’m not happy.” To my shock, he slapped me! He started to blow-up at me,
calling me an ingrate and spoiled brat. Of course, after a few minutes, he went down on his knees
and asked for my forgiveness. I was so weak that I forgave him!

Q: I am sorry. Was this a single incident or were there other occasions when you were physically
abused by Carlos?
A: There was another incident which was what I call “Pizza Fight”. One evening Carlos and I
ordered for pizza from Shakey’s. Since I was on a diet at that time I ordered a simple Garlic and
Cheese small Thin Crust pizza. Carlos made me order for him an All-meat large Thin Curst pizza.
We bolth were eating our respective pizzas in my room while watching T.V. Halfway through
my pizza, I went to the bathroom. When I came out, I caught Carlos eating the second to the last

16
slice of my pizza. Apparently, he also ate one slice while I inside the bathroom. I scolded him,
stressing on how inconsiderate he was to eat my small pizza when he still had so many slices of
his. I was sensitive to what he did because there were many incidents when he would eat my diet
food along with his fatty foods, which he wouldn’t compensate me for when he gives me the
budget for the grocery; therefore, me having to eat the fatty foods which he demanded for, so
breaking my diet. Then as I was about to eat my last slice of pizza, I noticed that he earlier put too
much hot sauce on it. I remember saying in a depressed way, “Forget it, you can have this last
slice, I can’t eat it cause it has too much hot sauce”. All of a sudden he just threw the box with his
pizza against the wall causing a disgusting mess.

Q: And then what happened?

A: When I yelled, “Carlos!!!”, he got my last pizza and shove it up on my face, pressing it for few
seconds as though suffocating me with it! I screeched, for my eyeglasses was painfully
imbedding on my nose. I pulled out my glasses while he was still pushing the pizza at my face, so
all the hot sauce on the pizza went into my eyes and my nose bled for the remainder of the
evening.

Q: When your eyes were hurting and your nose was bleeding, what did he do, if any?
A: Carlos refused to take me to the hospital. Instead, he drove away to supposedly visit his horses
in Polo Club. I couldn’t drive myself to the hospital because I could hardly see a thing.

Q: Did you ask help from anyone?

A: I didn’t want to ask for help from his relatives and friends that lived nearby because I was too
embarrassed. I just treated my eyes with an eye pack and flushed my nose with water. Thankfully,
the next day, I could already see and the pain was gone even if there was still some swelling.

Q: Other than the physical and psychological abuse, did you have any problems during the time
that you were living with Carlos?
A: My sexual relationship with Carlos was unsatisfying to me. Sex for me is very pleasurable,
intimate and a creative way for me to express my love and passion for another person. But our
sex life was not how I would have hoped it to be.

Q: What do you mean?

A: Our sexual relations were abnormal.

Q: I know that this might make you uncomfortable. But can you tell us why you think that your
sexual relationship was abnormal?
A: Carlos and I had sex on the night of our first date. I should have known from that experience
alone that there was something different about him. He refused to do cunnilingus because he
didn’t like the way the female sexual organ looked in general. As our sexual encounters went on,
I started to notice his other odd fetishes. As for the physical aspect of sex, he avoided even
touching my sexual organs with his own fingers, he preferred receiving oral sex from me rather
than intercourse. He was impatient during kissing and the only “foreplay” he did to me was
“breast-related”. On the psychological aspect of sex, I began to notice some peculiar things.

Q: What are these peculiar things?

A: For instance, he always had to have a drink before and even while having sex. Sometimes, he
would even make me pour him some scotch into his glass which was on the bedside table while
we were literally in the middle of having intercourse. At first, I didn’t mind doing that since it
seemed to make him more excited, but after a while, I began to get annoyed by his lack of
intimacy and concentration which that “bar tender” act made me feel.

17
Q: Would you say that he enjoyed this physical aspect of your relationship?
A: As early as about three months in our relationship, I noticed that he did not want to have sex
very frequently with me. I could say that we only had a sex, on the average, once a week during
those three months. As the months went by, our sexual encounters became less and less.

Q: What did you do, if any, to try and resolve the problem?
A: I tried talking to him about it, but he would always make things come out that I am the one not
satisfying him. He would tell me that I should do “different things, like masturbate in front of
him, or give him oral sex more often. He also told me that he didn’t want to undress me, and that
I have to be undress already on the bed before we start. Another request he had was for me to be
on top of him most, if not all of the time. He also wanted me to let him treat me a little bit like a
prostitute in bed, by calling me a “bitch”, “whore”, and demanding me to do everything he
wanted, even more degrading acts. He even joked one time that he wanted me to act like his
slave, and wear a maid’s uniform. I knew he wasn’t joking but trying to give me hints. At first, I
did everything he wanted me to do all for the sake of our sex life, except for dressing like a maid.

Q: If these things uncomfortable, why did you agree with most his requests?
A: Carlos was hardly emotional and affectionate with me, therefore, I felt that sex was the only
way to become intimate with him. I did everything he wanted me to do, but our sexual
relationship even worsened. He not only refused to have sex often, but began feeling gross about
all those peculiar things he demanded of me in bed. So I stopped doing those “strange acts”, and
all the more he ignored my own sexual advances and preferences. My sexual preferences were
quite normal – to “make love” more than just to have sex at least twice a week, to be kissed
longer and experience some foreplay. But I had no weird request that would make me considered
a pervert. I didn’t even demand any more for “hand to sexual organ” contact or cunnilingus. Yet
in spite of all my attempts to try make our sex life more enjoyable for us both equally, it never
improved. In fact, it got worse when we got married.

Q: You told us about the problems you’ve had with Carlos, how he didn’t seem to respect you,
how he drank too much, how he hurt you psychologically and physically. Why did you marry
him?
A: Honestly, because I loved him. I didn’t consider what was happening as a problem until much
later. Carlos always blamed the problems we had on me. And I guess, most of the time, I
believed him.
If only I knew early as then that his promises were all empty and his friends’ and family’s
reassurance were all lies. I wouldn’t have married Carlos. I would have left him immediately. If
only someone cared to tell me the truth, or if only I wasn’t so “blind”to all his problems,, I would
have been spared a whole lot of pain and wasted love. I wasn’t sharp and mature enough to see
the truth, but I should not have trusted everyone, especially Carlos that easily. It’s so painful for
me to find out much later when we were already married. My pain doesn’t only stem from my
wounded pride and trust, but from the fact of knowing that my life could have been different if I
knew the truth earlier.

Q: Would you like to take a short break?

A: Thank you. But I think can go on.

Q: How was your married life?

A: Just like when Carlos and I were not yet married, most of our recreation was going out at
night to a bar or disco. Most often, we went there alone and would just meet up with other people.

18
During the weekends, most of the time, we would just go to Polo Club and swim or ride horses. A
few times, we would go to his beach house in Tali or to Calatagan and stay in Punta Baluarte.

Q: Did you enjoy these activities?

A: Yes. But I also loved watching movies, shopping and just hanging out at the mall.

Q: Were you able to do these things?

A: We hardly ever watched movies for Carlos couldn’t sit still for that long. He would get up
every twenty minutes and walk around the movie theatre. As for shopping or hanging out in the
mall sort of thing, or mingling with my friends, Carlos was perpetually absent. I tried going
shopping with him a couple of times but he would end up shouting at the Sales people. He
couldn’t stand walking around malls because he got edgy when there were too many people
around him. So I would end up doing my thing whether alone, with my friends, or with the maid.
I wasn’t too happy about that. In fact, I started to realize that I wasn’t having fun with Carlos
anymore.

Q: Were you ever happy during the marriage?

A: During the first few months of our marriage, Carlos and I would walk around Forbes together
but these walks occurred less and less because Carlos always came home from work late. I would
just walk around the Polo field alone at night instead.
Those walks were some of my more pleasant times I had with him. The physical acitivity
somehow kept his temper at bay, and seemed to make his mind more relaxed. He therefore
seemed most sensible during those times. It was just such a pity that those walks lasted for only
an hour a couple of days a week for about four months during our marriage. I honestly think that
those walks were the only times I truly felt at peace with Carlos.

Q: You mentioned Carlos’ temper. Did this not change after you got married?
A: The longer I knew Carlos, the more I discovered what a terrible temper he had. Likewise, his
cruelty to others, including to me, would get worse as the days passed by. He would “lose his
top” very easily, and over the pettiest of things. He especially did not seem to make an effort to
control his temper when dealing with the maids, the driver, his grooms, his secretary and to
people who he just felt were “no smarter nor better than dogs” as he put it. He loved to call his
maids “stupida”, “tonta”, and “idiota” and the driver “tanga”, “gago” and “stupido”. Aside from
those degrading nicknames, he often cursed at them saying, “Putang ina mo!” or “Punyeta ka
talaga!”. When he lost his temper with me, or with his mother, sister, brothers or friends, he
cursed us in English and Spanish. His favorites were “Fuck you!”, “Bitch!”, “Coño!”, “Cabron!”,
“Hoder!” and “Fuck”-this, “Fuck”-that!

Q: What effect did this have on your married life?

A: Carlos had a very dirty mouth which I sadly began to pick-up for a while. Hearing him
shouting at home at the help or at someone over the phone was a part of our everyday life. In fact
after a while, my ears got used to it. He would get angry about anything. If the maids did not do
exactly as he ordered them he would “raise hell”. I noticed that the maids would end up not doing
things properly because they would get rattled when he would shout at them. I was brought up by
my parents to always treat the “help” with respect, and that no human being should be treated like
an animal. Carlos did not see it that way for he wasn’t raised that way either. In fact, I was later
on shocked, to discover that his mother treated her help in the same manner. Her curses to them
were not as graphic, but she too called them degrading names, and easily lost her patience with
them. I started to realize that Carlos treated me disrespectfully because he was that way to his
mother and sister, who tolerated him all their lives. Many times I would fear for Carlos’ life
because of his temper.

19
Q: What do you mean?
A: He would shout at security guards when they wouldn’t allow him to have his way. On one
occasion, a security guard in the former Trellis Restaurant in Fort Bonifacio yelled back at Carlos
when he insisted back to park in a reserved parking area. When Carlos started saying “Putang ina
naman!” the guard grabbed his gun and yelled at Carlos, “Anong Sinabi mo?!!” Carlos got scared
and just drove off. Another incident also happened in Hotel Sofitel.

Q: What happened in Hotel Sofitel?

A: Carlos and I went there to gamble in casino Filipino. The night started out fun. At first I won
P5,000 but Carlos made me bet it all so I was left with only earning P500. Because of that
“almost” loss, we left the casino and headed to a lobby bar. As soon as we ordered our drinks,
Carlos gave the waitress his AMEX credit card so she could have it processed already. After an
hour, Carlos asked for his bill but the waitress said that the cashier were taking a while. When
Carlos started to raise his voice, the waitress said that the cashier couldn’t get through AMEX.
But Carlos just blew up explaining that was why he gave his card earlier. The mait re d’, a young
English lady, came over to us to try to appease Carlos. But he kept on scolding her, and just
wouldn’t let her explain. She was already practically kneeling down beside Carlos apologizing
for the incident, but also asking him if he could use another credit card because it was impossible
to contact AMEX. Carlos refused and really started shouting already calling her stupid and
demanded to see the General Manager. He was also name-dropping that he knew the owners of
the Hotel.

Q: What did you do, if any?

A: When Carlos walked to the front desk where the cashier was, I offered to pay for bill with cash
instead since it was only P900+ the money I used and won at the Casino. The Mait re d’ accepted
it, and I also apologized to her. I just made an excuse that Carlos lost P100,000 in the casino that
was why he was such a foul mood. She accepted my apology while she wiped off her tears. When
I followed Carlos to the lobby, there he still was yelling at the cashier. His voice was echoing all
over the lobby that everyone was looking at him. Finally, about hour hotel security personnel
began to approach Carlos and tried talking him into leaving the hotel. Carlos all the more began
to yell at them. I got scared so I came up to him and tried to pull him out towards the door. Then
he turns his temper towards me. I kept on saying, “Forget about it, just let it go, I already paid for
it!” But he just kept on shouting. The security men began to surround us, and one of the hotel
employees approached me and asked if I was “Ok.”

Q: What did you feel?

A: I was so embarrassed that I just quickly walked out of the hotel to where our car was parked. I
sat on a bench a few meters away from our car and lit a cigarette while I waited for Carlos. Soon
after, he came dashing out of the hotel, but even he saw me, he went straight into his car and
drove off.

Q: You mean he left you?

A: I ran after him but he already turned to Roxas Blvd. I was such in shock that I sat down again.
I lit another cigarette and started to think about what to do.

Q: Did he come back?

A: Just when I was about to hail a cab, Carlos came back. As to how much I would’ve preferred
to stay away from him, I got in the car due to safety reasons. We were both yelling at each other
in the car.

20
Q: And then what happened?
A: When we got home, he just dropped me off and drove off to somewhere his horses were. I
don’t remember how we exactly settled things, but I do remember that this incident made me lose
a lot of respect for him.

Q: Do you think Carlos had a problem?

A: I could go on forever about all of Carlos’ temper and acts of cruelty. Some were as traumatic
as the ones I have just mentioned, and some were quite petty. But all in all, Carlos, I believed,
had a very big problem in respecting other people. He was over-confident that he believed that
most people were below him. But once one of these people stood up to him, he would be the first
to apologize or back off. In other words, he was also a coward.

Q: Did Carlos continue to shout at you as well?

A: Yes. But after we got married, I started really fighting back. When it came to us, there were
two reasons why I always fought back. One was because it is in my nature to fight for my rights
and to defend myself when abused, and two, because I noticed that when I fought back, he stops
abusing me after a while. But when I just shut-up or even cry, he doesn’t stop shouting at me,
calling me degrading names and “turning the tables around on me” by psyching me out.

Q: Were there any physical quarrels?

A: Carlos and I had a couple of physical quarrels. I admit that when I lost my temper, I had a
habit of throwing things, and sometimes punching him on his arm or chest. But I only reached
this point when I felt that doing that was the only way to make him listen or feel my pain.
Sometimes, Carlos retaliated by slapping me back or pushing me and pinning me down on bed.

Q: Did he only hit you when you were also being physical?
A: About three times, he slapped me without me even rasing a hand at him. But for me, that kind
of physical abuse didn’t hurt as much as the verbal and psychological abuse he inflicted on me.

Q: What do you mean?

A: Carlos had a way of making me believe that I deserved to be yelled at, and to be unloved by
my family. He would always say that I was a bitch like my mother, and that no other man would
tolerate and love me. He would particularly begin this “brainwashing” whenever I would confront
him about his women or drinking. I always lost the fight in the end.

Q: Did you try to make things work?

A: I tried to patch up things between us. In fact, I would even end up being the one to say sorry
to him. I would even cry and kiss him all over telling him how much I loved him and that I
forgave him.

Q: How did your relationship with Carlos affect you?

A: I lost all self-respect. It came to a point when I would hide in my closet, or lock myself in the
bathroom crying on the floor by the corner I the dark. I even became more pathetic as I would
cradle and hug my teddy bear crying and singing to it. I tried to get from my teddy bear the love
and sympathy that I couldn’t get from my own husband.

Q: Do you think that he was faithful to you?

A: Even after we got married, I still felt that I had to have a watchful eye over him especially
when it came to women. The women stopped calling up our house but I always had the gut feel
that Carlos was on the verge of being unfaithful to me with these “dirty” women. I wanted to
believe that he was ever so loyal, but there was always something deep inside me that kept me

21
from wholeheartedly trusting him. It was probably a combination of my insecurities,
observations, and simple female intuition.

Q: What were these observations?

A: His friends, for one would still tease him to them in front of me. Whenever Carlos and I
would go to a bar or disco, the type of women that would “eye” him were the “call girl” types. In
fact, I would catch Carlos many times either eyeing them back. The “cheaper” they looked, the
more they seemed attractive to him, greets him in front of me by saying, “Carlos, remember
me?”. Carlos immediately looked at me as though to check if I felt that there was something
“fishy” about her.

Q: Did you ever talk about it?

A: I tried to always work things out but whenever I confronted Carlos about these women, he
angrily and strongly denied knowing them. Or he would tell me that women like that would
always try to attract his attention because of his past reputation. He reassured me though that
woman and those like her were just wasting their time for he stressed his loyalty to me once
more.

Q: How did this make you feel?

A: I never had peace. After a while, I even started to include this issue in my daily prayers. I
would always ask God to keep Carlos away from that kind of temptation, and also to help me to
stop being paranoid. I even began getting nightmares about him cheating on me, choosing a
prostitute over me. In fact, I must have grown obsessed about it for I would strongly debate the
importance of a husband’s fidelity during our social functions. I was forever worried about it to
the point that when I see a morena woman, I would look bad at her even if Carlos weren’t around.

Q: Did you trust him?

A: I tried to trust him, and I tried to have confidence in myself about his whole time but I just
couldn’t seem appease my paranoia. Most of the time, Carlos would come home after dinner
already claiming after work, he went out for drinks with either his clients or by himself. Often he
would come home at around 9 p.m. At first it bothered me but for a while I got used to it, but
when he wasn’t home after 9 p. m., whether he called me or not, I would freak-out. My
imagination would just go wild to the point that I would end up calling the bar where he claimed
he was in. Sometimes he was there, most of the time, he wasn’t. When he came home, I would
confront him but he always managed to come up with an excuse that I believed.

Q: How would he answer your questions?

A: His most effective excuse was calling me a “paranoid bored bitch”. That was good enough to
make me shut-up and wallow in self-pity.

Q: How has his acts affected your married life?

A: It didn’t feel like I had a husband. There were instances when his constant disappearance
made me attempt to catch him. I would drive around Makati looking for him or his car, but I was
never successful. I would even drive by Makati Ave. and P. Burgos St. hoping to get lucky. I
never found him, but in one hilarious occasion, he found me!

Q: What happened?
A: I was driving in Makati Ave. when I decided to stop by Wendy’s to buy a snack. When I got
back in the car, it wouldn’t start. I was there for an hour panicking. By standers helped me by
charging my battery. As I was driving towards home, Carlos cut me by Buendia. In the middle of
the road, he scolded me. I pretended that I had absolutely no intentions to spy on him but that I

22
was really hungry. When we got home, after yelling at me a bit, he forgave. He just kept on
stressing how much he hated it when I would drive one of his Mercedes Benz out of the Forbes
area, especially at night since they didn’t have insurance.

Q: Didn’t he allow you to drive his car?

A: I was only allowed to drive the box-type Nissan Sentra out of Forbes Park.

Q: Do you think you were just as he called you, just being a “bored paranoid bitch”?
A: Even I could not understand all those sleepless paranoid nights I had for Carlos. In fact, I
would tell Carlos over and over that I swore to leave him the moment I found out he cheated on
me. He just kept on lying to me, reassuring me that he was loyal. So I just prayed that these
“women” only really existed in my nightmares. Unfortunately, or fortunately for me, I should
say, I chanced upon his American Express billings that reflected a lot of charges for a particular
massage parlor. When I confronted him, he admitted to me that he continued to see prostitutes
even while we were already married. The reason why he would sometimes disappear or come late
was he would go to the massage parlor.

Q: Are these copies of the credit card statements that showed charged for the massage parlor?
A: Yes. Although the other statements, I no longer kept.

Copy of the American Express Billings and Statement is requested to be received as

evidence and marked as Exhibit “B”, “C” and “D”, respectively.

Q: How about your sex life?

A: Our sex life went from bad to worse during our marriage. This time, we had sex so sparingly
that I got off the “pill” because I felt it was useless. Carlos and I would only have intercourse
once in every month. Worse, that occasional sex we had wasn’t even worth the wait. It would
usually be a night of long and tiring hours of me stimulating his male organ by hand or by mouth
to enable it get hard. Then he would have intercourse with me for a short while.

Q: What did you do if any, to try and improve your sexual relationship?
A: I would try to have sex more than often than but he was either uninterested or impotent.

Q: What do you mean?

A: Sometimes, we would lie naked for hours while I tried to make him “hard”. Most of the time,
we never reached the intercourse stage because his organ wouldn’t cooperate, or I just lost all my
desires, not to mention arm cramps and lock-jaw.

Q: What else did you do, if any?

A: I tried to entice him and tease him. But sometimes, when I teased him, or when I walked
around naked in front of him, he would get “hard” but would still not want to “do it”. The very
most was for me to give him oral sex which after a while I refused to do it already.

Q: How has this affected you?

A: I would feel bad, rejected, insecure and embarrassed

Q: Was he willing to at least try?

A: I didn’t want to give up. I would try to figure-out why he wasn’t interested in me anymore. I
would even buy herbal sex medicines and ask him to take them. I also told him to see a doctor.
He obviously didn’t go.

23
Q: Did you talk to anyone about your problem?
A: Once, with his sister.

Q: What happened?
A: When I told her of our problems, she told me a shocking story. According to her, Carlos used
to molest her as a child by touching and kissing her sexual organ when he slept beside him. She
was about 9 years old while Carlos was about 14 years old. His sister made me promise not to tell
Carlos, but I couldn’t keep it to myself. If this was the reason for our problems, then I thought
maybe we should talk about it.

Q: You told Carlos?

A: Yes. When I confronted him, he denied it and accused his sister of trying to ruin our marriage.
Carlos would get so upset whenever I brought it up, so I just let it be.

Q: What other problems did you have, if any?

A: Carlos continued to drink. When Carlos got drunk, or even just drank a little bit, his negative
characteristics got worse. Firstly, he would become very tactless to the point of verbally hurting
and embarrassing other people. He would lose his temper easily. And he would lose his
inhibitions and become flirty with other women in front of me. The evening mostly ended up with
us fighting, or with me crying. I don’t think that there was ever a time that he did not have at least
a drop of alcohol whenever we went out a night.

Q: Did he really drink a lot?

A: I have to admit that I tried to monitor Carlos’ “drinking” often. I was never really able to
monitor his alcohol consumption in detail, but form what I could remember and what I knew of,
on a quiet night at home, he drank 3-4 “doubles” of scotch, regardless of how much he drank
during the day or after work. When his friends were visiting at home, he would drink about an
entire bottle of scotch all to himself or half a bottle of scotch and a couple of beers. I knew this
because I either counted or checked the receipt, which he takes home for tax purposes. Carlos
also admitted to me that he spent about P40,000-50,000 a month on “our” going out at night. I
would always say “your” going out at night and scotch! Even when we had dinner out in an
expensive restaurant, the expense of our dinner would mostly be from his drinks rather than our
food, even if I ate a lot.

Q: Did you tolerate this drinking?

A: Often I would refuse to go out at night with him to a bar or disco reasoning that I hated the
way he acted in public when he got drunk. He would always promise not to get drunk, but most
of the time he did. So I would refuse to go out at night with him. I thought that by not being his
date fore the evening. I made him know that I didn’t condone his drinking.

Q: Did you try to resolve the problem?

A: I didn’t really know if he was an alcoholic and I did not really know how to handle a person
with such a problem. His friends and family were telling me that Carlos did not drink a lot. I
would just try to manipulate the situation surrounding his drinking when direct confrontation
from me didn’t work. I would empty half of his Johnny Walker Red or Black and fill it up with
water which I dyed with food coloring to match the color of the scotch, Carlos would only notice
the first few sips, but after his second double, which he will drink within an hour, he wouldn’t
notice anymore. He would even comment on how “smooth” the drink was.

Q: What else did you do, if any?

24
A: I would always try to reason out with him how alcohol was running his and our life by
stressing on health issues and his drunken behavior.

Q: How did he react?

A: He would never promise to fully quit drinking, for he kept on justifying his drinking by
claiming it to be his only vice. But he told me that he promised to “cut down”. He tried to show
me that effort by not drinking that much at home, but that didn’t hide the fact that he drank a lot
while he wasn’t home which was half of the day. It seemed that he was unwilling or incapable of
doing anything about it. I went through different stages of dealing with his drinking. At first, I
was so strictly against it. Then I went through a stage where in I tried to be “cool” and tolerant
about it, hoping the denial will help me live with it. After a while, I would become aggressively
against it. Then the worst stage came when I tried to become part of it hoping the “reverse
psychology” would work to make him quit. I tried drinking, too.

Q: What happened?
A: On one occasion, Carlos was not yet home after midnight from what he claimed was a
business meeting, that I got drunk on his Johnny Walker red. Because there was no other kind of
alcohol at home to drink, I settled for scotch. But because I couldn’t stand the taste and smell of
scotch, I drank it very fast, straight from the bottle. By the time Carlos got home, I was sprawled
on the floor “dead drunk” with an empty JW (large) bottle in hand.

Q: Then what happened?

A: Carlos scolded me. I began vomiting.

Q: Did Carlos give you any help or support?

A: I vomited so many times that night I kept on asking Carlos to take me to the hospital. But he
just told me to go to sleep. The next day, I still kept on vomiting, stomach acids and green stuff
came out. Carlos still didn’t want to take me to the hospital.

Q: What did you do?

A: I called up my family doctor, Dra. Montalban, who hasn’t heard from me since I was probably
10 years old. I told her the bitter truth, so she told me to have my maid buy a certain kind of
“anti-acid pump” medicine in the drug store right away. Then she told me that if still vomited
after that medicine, I’d have to go to the hospital. Luckily, an hour later, the medicine did work.
But for the rest of the day, I felt so sick.

Q: How did Carlos react?

A: Carlos just found the entire incident amusing. He would also remind me about it as a lesson
for me to learn from. He even commented on what a waste that entire scotch bottle was on me. I
was hoping that the incident would influence him to at least limit his alcohol intake realizing the
“bad influence” it had over me but it didn’t. I don’t remember exactly when I “let it go”, but I do
know after a while, I stopped pestering him about his drinking. I just got tired.

Q: Was there any other incident when Carlos would find suffering amusing?
A: Aside from my own pains, I also felt terrible when I would witness how cruel he was to
others. The more and more I saw him inflict cruelty on others, the more I started to doubt if I
wanted him to be the father of my future children. In fact, on one incident, a couple of 4 year old
kids of our neighbor loitered in our backyard. At first, I was impressed to see Carlos talking to
them.

Q: What happened?

25
A: I saw him handling over the kids a couple of chilies (sili labuyo) and encouraging then to eat
the chilies claiming they were sweet candy. As one of the kids was about to eat one, I rushed over
and tapped his hand. The kid was in shock but was lucky. I brought them back to their yayas who
were nearby.

Q: How did Carlos react?

A: I scolded Carlos but all he did was to laugh. He found it is so funny. I experienced a similar
incident when I was a child and it traumatized me. I wouldn’t want that child to suffer too. This
incident made me really think thoroughly about Carlos’ capability of being a father. I have
experienced people who have short tempers who expressed it by merely shouting. But I have
never experienced cruelty from anyone in my life the way Carlos made me experience it whether
it may have been directly done to me, or done to others.

Q: Was there any acts of cruelty?

A: During our marriage, he even began doing weird things to the fan doves I gave him. He would
give them a bath and blow dry their feathers. They did not fly, so he would take them out of their
cage to walk around our lawn. I was against that because of the hungry cats roaming around. And
true enough, they got eaten up one day. He did the same with the second batch of doves I gave
which got ravaged too!

Q: Did you try to help him?

A: No matter how I tried to make him realize how cruel he could be, he couldn’t understand. He
always insisted that I was over-acting or imagining things. This character trait of his was one of
the major reasons why I left him.

Q: What other reasons did you have that made you decide to leave him?
A: A few months into our marriage I began to notice strange things Carlos would do. Carlos
started to become a clean freak. He always took very warm showers and baths more than once a
day. I myself couldn’t touch his bath water; it was just too hot! After a while, he bought all these
dental tools for his teeth. Then his bathroom time became unreasonable. He would stay in the
bathroom for more than an hour. Sometimes for even 4 hours.

Q: Did you ask him about this?

A: He just always complained about constipation.

Q: What other unusual behavior did you notice?

A: He would have the maids clean the house until not a speck of dust was left. Sometimes, he
would wake up 4 am and wake up along with the maids to have a general cleaning. Then his
sleeping time became incredible.

Q: What do you mean?

A: He would sleep at around 4-5 am and wake up the following day at 7 am and still go to work
some days, I noticed that he didn’t sleep at all, then the following days, he slept throughout the
entire day. According to him, his biological clock shifts because of stress from work. Many
nights I find him working on some computation on his desk in our room till 4 am.

Q: What else did you notice, if any?

A: His temper also got worse but mostly directed to the maids and the driver. He fired his driver
Juan who was his drivers for years all because Juan was an El Shaddai fanatic. He would either
fire our maids or they would leave every two weeks to a month. The maids Agency would run out
of maids to send to us already.

26
Q: Was he always cruel or unreasonable to the help?
A: A maid that stayed with us for about a year was Conching. I hated her though. I was the one
who accepted her when Carlos and I were just “seeing” each other at around July 1993. But she
had all the loyalty to Carlos and none for me. I admit that she was smart but she was also sly and
ambitious.

Q: Why did you not like Conching?

A: She meddled into things which were only supposed to concern me, and just didn’t follow my
orders. In a nutshell, she obviously didn’t respect me. Normally, I wake up at around 9-10 am
everyday. But one day, I woke up at 7:30 am. While Carlos was taking a shower. I went
downstairs to have breakfast. To Conching’s surprise, I caught her coming in the house wearing
civilian clothes. She obviously came from somewhere outside.

Q: What did you then?

A: As I confronted her, all she could tell me was that she dropped off something for a friend of
Carlos in Dasma. I asked a friend either. As I was scolding her about those lame answers and
trying to make her tell me the truth, Carlos who overheard me ran to us and dismissed Conching.
He quickly explained to me where she came from with a detailed story. He just blamed her lack
of words due to stupidity. That entire day I just kept on observing her. I could see that she was
hiding something from me.

Q: And then what happened?

A: That evening I told Carlos to fire her because I found her to big-headed and sly. Carlos
pacified me by explaining how difficult it was to find smart maids. So I gave her another chance.
For the next days, she was subservient to me, but surprisingly, Carlos just fired her one night.
When I asked him why, he said it was because she broke our water pump. Even if I fount it odd, I
didn’t question him anymore because I was so glad that she left. The maid who was left was
Aileen who I liked. She wasn’t so smart, but she was very respectful to me. But even if I treated
Aileen like a friend, one day she just left.

Q: Was there any other unusual things that you noticed?

A: Another peculiar personality that entered our home was a woman named Ellen. She was a
woman in her late 50’s who Carlos would entertain in our bedroom. I wouldn’t see what they
were doing or hear what they are talking about, but I just felt the bedroom was not a place for
strangers. Carlos told me that she was selling him black market dollars. He eventually entertained
her in our basement. The secrecy, according to him, was so that the maids wouldn’t see his
dollars.

Q: Did this unusual habits stop?

A: Carlos habits became worse and suspicious as time went by. He would always go out at night
for an hour just wearing house clothes. He always claimed to be visiting his horses in Polo Club
but he wouldn’t want to take me along with him. I would overhear him sometimes talking
secretly to someone and also at times was screaming at someone on the phone. He played Polo
and rode his horses less and less. He also started urinating into the pots of my plants. So after a
while, my plants died.

Q: How did this affect your everyday life?

A: He began avoiding social and family functions. I always ended up going without him. He
would tell me stories about people talking bad about him, or about his enemies whom he couldn’t

27
really name. He wasn’t anti-social when it came to inviting his drinking friends over to our house,
even if I raised hell about it.

Q: Were you happy during this time?

A: I had a strong feeling that something wasn’t right. I wasn’t sure if our problems were caused
by incompatibility, or that Carlos was becoming more and more crazy. I was even thinking that
maybe marriage was choking him. I definitely was very unhappy. So I prayed to god to give me a
vivid sign whether to push through with my plans to wed Carlos in church or not to. And very
soon, God answered my prayers. The truth began to fall like manna from the sky.

Q: What do you mean?

A: Sometime around late November, Carlos and I went to Cebu to attend a wedding. We were
booked at the Shangri-la Mactan Hotel two days before the wedding. On the night before the
wedding, the couple to wed hosted a party at the cogons by the beach. Carlos got drunk that night
but I was preoccupied with the other guests to be affected by it.

Q: What happened in Cebu?

A: At around 1 am, Carlos and I went back up to our room. He just crashed into bed without even
undressing into his sleepwear. As he was snoring away, I was freshening up for a good night’s
rest. After I took a bath, I noticed that one of my nails broke and I needed a nail cutter. I
remembered that Carlos kept one in his clutch bag. As I was looking for it, I saw his passport case
in there too and I wondered why he brought it.

Q: Did you find out why he brought it?

A: When I opened his passport case I discovered a glass tube, a small alcohol burner, some folded
sheets of aluminum wrap, and small sachets of white tiny rocky crystals. I knew that they were
Shabu and its paraphernalia.

Q: How did you know that it was “shabu”?

A: That may have been the very first time I saw the drug in real-life, but I saw much of it on TV
for me to know what it was.

Q: Did you think that Carlos was using shabu?

A: At first, I couldn’t believe that Carlos would take drugs. I panicked and flushed all the Shabu
down the toilet. I woke up Carlos saying that someone must have planted the drugs in his
passport case. Carlos, who was in drunkenstupor, told me to shut up because they were Shabu
were worth P20,000.

Q: What did you do?

A: I was shocked! I ran back and forth in the room shaking in disbelief. I even ran to the balcony
and yelled out loud, “My husband Carlos is a druggie!” Carlos pulled me in and slapped me. He
told me to shut up, and go to sleep.

Q: What happened then?

A: I lied on my bed for a while, then went into the bathroom to inspect his things more
thoroughly. I discovered in his passport case one more Shabu sachet. But instead of throwing it, I
decided to try it. I tried to remember how it was done in TV. But instead of breathing in the
fumes with the glass tube in my mouth, I put the glass tube in my nose and breathed in from
there. After a couple of hours, I noticed that my mouth tasted acidic and I had list my sleepiness.
Also, my mind seemed to be thinking very fast. I couldn’t sleep anymore and when morning
came, Carlos woke up angry at me.

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Q: Did you tell him about what you did?
A: Yes. He freaked out when I told him I took the Shabu. He immediately told me to pack my
things and call the front desk because we were leaving.

Q: Did you want to go?

A: I didn’t want to go because the wedding was that evening. But he didn’t care, he wanted to go
home. I didn’t have much of choice. All throughout our flight we did not talk. When we got
home, all we did was fight about the Shabu.

Q: Did he admit to you that he was a user?

A: He told me then that he just started experimenting with Shabu a few months ago, and he swore
to me that he wasn’t an addict and therefore would stop. I told him that if he didn’t stop, I would
take it too. He refused so he promised he would. I didn’t ever think Carlos had it in him to take
drugs. I really could not believe it, and would not allow it.

Q: Did he stop taking drugs?

A: A few days later, I walked in on Carlos taking his Shabu again. I was so furious, we got into a
violent fight. Later on in the day, he opened up some facts to me about his secret, Apparently,
Ellen, the so called Black market dollar dealer, was his supplier andpusher. Also, Conching, the
maid I didn’t like, would buy the Shabu for him. He had been on Shabu for a long time already.
He told me that he started taking it occasionally just a few months before we started going out. As
time went by, his addiction to it grew.

Q: What else did he tell you?

A: Apparently, the “high” of his alcohol wasn’t enough anymore. He needed something else.
Also the Shabu allowed him to drink more than normal too and still gave him energy and a mind
for work. He even told me that he spent about P20,000 to 50,000 a month on it. I really told him
to stop or else I would leave him. He said he would but that couldn’t do it immediately.

Q: Was this at this time that you decided to leave him?

A: I still wanted to give him a chance. I told his mother about it. At first, she didn’t believe me
but eventually had to accept it. I tried to tolerate his vice for two months, hoping it would stop.
But I also realized that having discovered it was the sign God sent me. So I told Carlos that our
Church wedding was on hold until he stops taking Shabu for at least six months straight.

Q: Do you think he stopped?

A: His characteristics got worse as the days passed by and the more I began to see that what we
had was no longer a marriage. On the day of Carlos’ birthday, February 7, 1995, I woke-up and
just snapped out of Carlos’ spell.

Q: What happened on that day?

A: I woke up that morning to his shouts. When I went downstairs, he was scolding our maids
because they did not clean-up all the flies that were dead in our dining area. When Carlos
discovered a dead fly in the corner behind one of our house plants he grabbed the broom from our
maid, Juliet, and gestured to hit her with it while his other hand grabbed her by her hair at her
nape.

Q: What happened?
A: I was stunned. I was sitting at the foot of the dining table watching the entire incident as
though I were watching a violent movie. I went up to Carlos in a very spaced out way and just got

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the broom from him and gestured to Juliet to go to the kitchen. He calmed down a little and ate
his breakfast. As I sat there and watched him, I kept on asking myself questions like, “What did I
saw in this monster?”, “Why did I marry him?”, “Why didn’t I leave him a long time ago?”, “why
I didn’t see the storm coming?”, and “Why was I still there?”. I went to my room still spaced out,
horrified and yet I remember feeling a certain kind of peace in me. I went shopping that afternoon
for the household, and did some errands. Throughout the entire day, I kept on seriously thinking
about leaving Carlos.

Q: What happened?
A: That early evening when I got home, Carlos made me get dressed because we were going to
go out that night to celebrate his Birthday. After I got dressed, when I went to him in his room, he
commented to me that he wanted me to wear a headband. I refused. He said that he wouldn’t take
me with him. I told him to leave without me. He thought he called my bluff and pretended he left.
He drove to Polo Club for a while.

Q: What did you do after he left?

A: I began packing my clothes and things. 30 minutes later, when he came back. I told him that I
was leaving him for good and that I was going home to Roxas. All he did was laugh. He said,
“Sure, you always say but you never do!”, then he left. After I packed, I had Juliet hail me a cab.
She also packed her things and didn’t want to stay in our house if I wasn’t around. At 1 am, we
left. I went to the airport while Juliet went on to a relatives house. By 7 am, I was in home in
Roxas City, much to the surprise of my family!

Q: What happened to your relationship and marriage then?

A: Since I left in February, 1995, we have effectively been separated-in-fact.

Q: Do you regret leaving?

A: I do love Carlos and maybe I still do. But I don’t know if he ever loved me or if he was
capable of loving. I had to leave because I didn’t want to lose whatever self-respect I had left.
Everyday of the marriage, I felt tortured, lost and hopeless. The move was the giant leap I needed
to break-away from the nightmare of a life I lived with Carlos. After that day, even if there were
still uncut strings between Carlos and I, I knew I would never be his wife again, because I would
never be the same person again. I knew that my new life had just begun!

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