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Jiara Laine Montano

November 25 2016
Law and Liberty: Reflections on the Persistence of Philippine Gender Inequality
The law is constant and all powerful. It prevents people from doing what is wrong by
enforcing what is deemed as proper behaviors by imposition of punishments. Theoretically,
everybody is equal under the law. Men and women, young and old, all are judged fairly according
to their crimes and law. Realistically, however, this does not seem to be the case. There are a lot
of Philippine laws that apply differently depending on ones gender. Some crimes that are illegal
for women are legal when it comes to men. Furthermore, some laws are unfairly imposed. These
law explicitly show explicit sexual discrimination between females and males that should be
revised and repealed.
One such inequality can be seen in extra-marital affairs. According to Article 334 of the
Revised Penal Code or the RPC, concubinage is committed by any husband who shall keep a
mistress in the conjugal dwelling, or, shall have sexual intercourse, under scandalous
circumstances, with a woman who is not his wife, or shall cohabit with her in any other place. On
the other hands, according to Article 333 of the Revised Penal Code adultery means the carnal
relation between a married woman and a man who is not her husband, the latter knowing her to
be married, even if the marriage be subsequently declared. Each sexual intercourse counts as a
crime of adultery, while concubinage is considered a continuing crime. The problem with these
two laws is that their two separate existences already imply that there is a discrimination. Also, it
much more difficult to prove concubinage in court than adultery as proof of sexual intercourse is
enough in adultery, but in concubinage, the prosecution must prove that the sexual intercourse
must be under scandalous circumstances, or that the husband kept a mistress in the conjugal
dwelling or cohabited with her in any other place. This makes it more difficult for men to be
charged with and infidelity crime as juxtaposed with a woman who can easily be charged.
Adultery is proven by circumstantial evidence. It is enough proof for a married woman and a man
who is not her husband alone in a closed room for adultery charge. While one might think that
what is already stated might already be unfair, it actually gets worse. The penalty for concubinage
is lower than that of adultery. The maximum penalty for the concubinage is four years and one
day while the penalty for the mistress is just destierro (This means banishment or only a
prohibition from residing within the radius of 25 kilometers from the actual residence of the
accused for a specified length of time). This entails that the woman embroiled with the married
man is not imprisonment. At all. The penalty for the man other in adultery is the same as that of
the guilty wife. The maximum penalty for adultery is six years of imprisonment. From this one
can already see that 6 years is greater than 4 years. This is obviously very unfair and
discriminating.
A lot of influential people have already pointed this discriminating law out for being
unconstitutional. Article 333 and article 334 of the Revised Penal Code of the Philippines in facts
is a violation of the equal protection clause and the UN convention on the elimination of all forms
of discrimination against women. However, even after years of bringing this into attention
nothing has change in this section of the Revised Penal Code. This made me ask why is it that
there has been no change in the law even after continuous pressure from feminist groups like
Gabriela to change it. To answer this question one must first know who passes the laws in the
government. The senate and the congress compromise the lawmaking bodies in the country
wherein 25% of both these houses are comprised of women (six in the senate and seventy-seven
in the congress) while the majority are men. What I have observed from these two branches over
the years is that most of the congressmen and male senators are usually embroiled in scandalous

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extra marital scandals (they are usually hidden well though). I directly observed this in my citys
congressman and his wife and other politicians my family are close with. Although they try to
keep things under the wraps a lot of people still know that the husband is involved with several
women. This kind of people present in the government may act as a blockage to the passing of
certain bills that aim to revise the inequality in the law. If the law of male adultery gets passed
they too will easily get accused, charged and penalized as it is easier to prove adultery than
concubinage. With the mens power in the congress, efforts of changing the laws become more
difficult.
The peculiar thing about his situation however, is not only that there is some sort of
invisible hand that prevent feminist bills for being passed but rather the way society acts towards
extra-marital affairs of the wife versus the husband. In the Philippines, when a man cheats his
wife usually tolerates his behavior and still remains in the same roof as the husband. I have
directly observed this in my family. For example, my grandmother remained as the faithful
wife to my grandfather who had uncountable mistresses and even sired children with them. Two
of my aunts also remained with their husbands even after several cases of cheating. Even my
mother was no exception as she too remained with my father even after two cases of adultery.
However, when it was one of my aunts who cheated she became a pariah in the family. Nobody
would like to talk to her. She was not invited in family functions and people would start doubting
the parentage of their children. She becomes a fallen woman. Notice that from these observations
the mans crime is not even penalized. It is rather tolerated and hidden, sometimes even with the
cooperation of the wife and their families.
The curious thing about this is that his behavior is reflected in the law and at the same
time the law influences peoples perception of what is right and is wrong. This thus creates a
chronic system the perpetuates sexual discrimination. To be able to spark a change one needs to
shake such system to disturb this kind of striation. I personally think that both Article 333 and
334 be repealed for a marital infidelity law wherein both husband and wife and their consorts are
charged equally. However, even if the law was changed to be stricter on extra-marital infidelities
it is more difficult to be imposed on men because of societys tolerance to male infidelity. But if
the law can be used to shake the system by those people in power and increase awareness of
womens rights then I think that it may create a significant change in societys gender
discrimination. Furthermore, the current concubinage and adultery charges can only be filed by
the offended spouse. I think complaint should include the families of the conjugal couple because
while the wife might tolerate it the family may not and this decreases the tolerance of people
towards crimes like these.
Efforts have been recently made in the government in light of gender equality in the
law. Gabriela has continuously been actively proposing for the decriminalization of adultery.
They have also been proposing for a bill that seeks to change the term to marital infidelity,
which would have been applicable to both male and female spouses. Also, recent efforts have also
been made to include same-sex infidelity cases (same-sex extramarital affairs are currently legal).
The measure seeks to broaden the scope of Article 333 of the Revised Penal Code, to also include
punishment for same-sex adultery. However, while these bills have been proposed a long time
ago (i.e. 2009 for the Gabriela revised Article 333 and 334 and 2013 for same-sex revisions) no
recent changes have been made to the RPC when it comes to this topic. This suggests that there
has been no significant pressure on the government to pass this laws. Another way that we can
pressure these changes is to make the people aware of this discrimination to spread their
awareness. With a bigger population pressuring the government it is possible that these changes
can be accelerated.