Access to justice is difficult. Rape within or outside marriage is very hard to
                    prove. There are no witnesses. It takes courage for any woman to break the
                    silence. And when she does, the judge and the police, who are mostly
                    male, do not understand why a wife could take her husband to court. 
 

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                    Women's Feature Service is located at 313-E Katipunan Ave., 
                    Loyola Heights, Quezon City 1108 Philippines 
                    Tel:4349310 Fax:9299734
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                    "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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                    Women's Feature Service is located at 313- E Katipunan Ave., 
                    Loyola Heights Quezon City 1108 Philippines 
                    Tel:4349310 Fax:9299734 E-mail:wfs2pacific.net.ph,[email protected]
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