Philippines:
The first ever conviction of MARITAL RAPE
By Charina Sanz-Zarate
Women's Feature Service
"I crouch in fear every time he comes home and says 'let's play
basketball'," says Remedios Baudon, 38. More than a year now after her
husband Eleuterio, a taxi driver, forced her to play the game with her,
Remy, the complainant of the Philippines's first marital rape conviction,
still
shudders.
It was an altogether different ballgame in Remy's description: perverse
bestial acts, the way dogs do it, and lots of punching and kicking of
breasts, chest, or thighs,
Remy met Eleuterio in a supposed blind date set up by her friends. Instead
of bringing her home that night as he had promised, Eleuterio brought her
to his house and raped her. "I had no choice but to marry him, thinking
that
he would no longer beat me if I became his wife," says Remy, who
grudgingly allowed Eleuterio to live with her after the rape. She was wrong.
The beatings got even worse.
She was three months pregnant when Eleuterio forced her to have sex with
him on the morning of Sept. 14, 1999, causing her to bleed. That same
night, he returned and raped her again. "He treated me like a pig, unmindful
of the pain in my genitals." Two days later, Remy was hospitalized and
had
a miscarriage. According to a medical report, it was caused by trauma in
the cervix during forced sexual intercourse.
On Sept. 16, she was again raped at knifepoint. "Better kill me now. I
can
no longer bear the pain. I am not a dog," she told him.
"Remy refused to settle," says Davao City Regional Trial Court Judge
Renato Fuentes, who found Eleuterio guilty of marital rape under Republic
Act No. 8353 or The Anti-Rape Law.
Last Oct 12, 2000, Fuentes handed down his decision sentencing Eleuterio
to reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment for two (2) counts of rape.
This record-setting decision prompted Davao RTC Judge Adoracion
Cruz-Avisado, a former women's rights lawyer, to declare that Fuentes's
ruling now made it "clear and definite that the husband cannot utilize
his
right of sexual intercourse with his wife, perfunctorily as he pleases,
without the consent and cooperation of the wife."
Davao City Council Women's Committee Chair Luz C. Ilagan, also former
Chair of Gabriela-Mindanao, for her part, lauded Remy "for paving the way
for other women to come forward and for showing them that they have a
chance."
However, Abanse-Pinay party list-Rep. Patricia Sarenas reminds us that
despite this, it remains a fact that "not many women are aware that marital
rape is now a crime. We still need to educate women, to tell them that
there's a law that they can use." Lyda Canson, Executive Director of the
Bathaluman Crisis Center, agrees. We are demystifying the peoples' belief
that marital rape cannot happen, she says. Unfortunately, though, it does
occur, even in love marriages.
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