THE Supreme Court has ruled that the law punishing abuse or violence against women and children applies not only to relationships between man and woman but also to woman and woman affairs.
This is the second ruling of the High Court that sets the record straight on the application of Republic Act 9262, or the Anti-Violence Against Women and Children Act (VAWC) of 2004.
In a 10-page decision dated December 7, 2022 but only made public yesterday, the SC upheld for the first time the prosecution under the VAWC law of a woman in a same-sex relationship who accused her partner of physical abuse.
The ruling was penned by Associate Justice Henri Jean Paul Inting.
The case involves the complaint of a woman who claimed that her partner, the petitioner in this case, crushed her hands repeatedly with a car door, causing a fracture on her left wrist that required surgery.
A complaint for violation of the VAWC law was filed before Branch 73 of the Antipolo City Regional Trial Court in 2018, which the petitioner asked the court to dismiss on the ground that the VAWC law does not apply to women in a lesbian relationship.
The RTC denied the motion to dismiss the case and the subsequent motion for reconsideration, ruling that there is a provision in the VAWC law, specifically Section 3(a) that uses the gender-neutral word “person” who has or had a sexual or dating relationship with a woman.
With the RTC rejecting her bid, the petitioner elevated the case to the SC.
In bringing the case to the attention of the magistrates, the petitioner explained that the RTC erred in its ruling including lesbian relationship under the coverage of the VAWC law.
The petitioner stressed that the case Garcia vs Drilon that was cited by the lower court in its ruling was a mere “obiter dictum,” which means it was a judge’s incidental expression of opinion but not the main ruling in the case and could not be cited as a precedent in succeeding cases.
But the SC disagreed and held that VAWC may “likewise be committed against a woman with whom the person has or had a sexual or dating relationship.”
“Clearly, the use of the gender-neutral world ‘person’ who has or had a sexual or dating relationship with a woman encompasses even lesbian relationship,” the SC said.
The SC also clarified that contrary to the petitioner’s claim that its pronouncement in the Garcia vs Drilon is a mere obiter dictum as the “discussion on the applicability of the anti-VAWC Law to lesbian relationship was a resolution of the issue in Garcia whether or not the anti-VAWC Law was discriminatory for supposedly singling out husbands or father.”
“Such ruling in Garcia vs Drilon can thus be applied to petitioner’s case,” the SC added.
Further, the SC said that the petitioner’s recourse to elevate the case was “improper” as the denial of the motion to quash information is an interlocutory order and, hence, neither appealable nor can it be the subject of a petition for certiorari.
“Rather, the proper remedy is to go to trial and appeal an adverse judgement against her, should one be rendered by the RTC,” the high court also said.
Associate Justices Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa, Samuel Gaerlan and Maria Filomena Singh concurred with Inting.
In February this year, the SC issued a landmark ruling upholding the right of a father to apply for protection and custody orders for his child against an abusive mother under the VAWC law.
This as it granted the petition for certiorari filed by an American national on behalf of his minor daughter.
In the said case filed before the Taguig City RTC, the petitioner alleged that his wife placed their daughter in a harmful environment deleterious to the latter’s physical, emotional, moral, and psychological development after she engaged in extra-marital affairs and got hooked in casinos.
The petitioner said his wife also physically abused their daughter and at one time, even pointed a knife and threatened to kill her.
He asked that a temporary protection order under the VAWC law be issued against his wife.
But the Taguig RTC dismissed the petition, saying that the ground that protection and custody orders under the said law could not be issued against a mother who allegedly abused her own child.
