Tougher penalties for wife and child abuse

Wife beaters, beware.

President Arroyo marked International Women’s Day yesterday by signing a new law that increases the penalties for men who abuse their wives and children.

Mrs. Arroyo, the Philippines’ second female president, thanked Congress — particularly the female legislators — for crossing party lines to ensure the passage of the Palace-backed measure, known as Republic Act 9262 or the Anti-Violence Against Women and Their Children Act.

The Kalakasan (Strength) Foundation, a group that works against domestic violence, hailed the passage of the law, saying it was the culmination of over a decade of legislative work.

Under the law, men who abuse their female partners or their children can get up to 16 years in jail, Kalakasan officials said.

In contrast, the common crime of inflicting injury on another person is punishable by only six years in jail.

The law also provides special protection measures for abused women and provides legal recourse for them, Kalakasan said.

A 2003 survey showed that nine percent of all Filipino women had been harmed by their domestic partners, the foundation said.

Kalakasan said that the law only protected women and children because there were no statistics on men being abused by their domestic partners.

Mrs. Arroyo told the crowd that she had tried to be gender-sensitive as a president and had helped provide micro-finance assistance to about a million women.

The bill defines domestic violence as "any act or series of acts committed by any person against a woman who is his wife, former wife or against a woman with whom the person has or had a sexual or dating relationship or with whom he has a common child, or against her child whether legitimate or illegitimate, within or without the family abode, which results in or is likely to result in physical, sexual, psychological harm or suffering, or economic abuse includes threats of such acts, battery, assault, coercion, harassment or arbitrary deprivation of liberty."

Aside from imprisonment, the offender would pay a fine of P100,000 to P300,000 and would have to undergo psychological counseling or psychiatric treatment and shall report compliance to the court.

Victims shall be entitled to compensatory, moral and exemplary damages.

The new law is part of her administration’s policy of protecting women’s rights and promoting women’s role in government, Mrs. Arroyo said.

She used the occasion to point out that her administration has the most number of women in the government. "This is the only time that almost half of the Cabinet are women."

— With Edu Punay, Cecille Suerte Felipe, AFP