Love for the right reasons  

Today’s piece serves an admonition, most especially, to the Filipinas who are planning or who already have a romantic relationship with Americans. Let’s take the case of Joe and Joy.

Joe, a US citizen met Joy at an online dating site. After just a couple of months of long-distance relationship, Joe decided to visit Joy in the Philippines. Two years ago they finally met in Manila, spent some time together and decided to get serious. After only a couple of weeks, Joe returned to New York and seemed to have made up his mind in marrying Joy. Except that there are some few kinks to settle on Joy’s side.

Unbeknownst to Joe, Joy was married with three children. He only learned about it when a cousin of Joy emailed him about it. When he confronted her about it, she told him that she and her husband have long been separated and wanted to annul their marriage but she doesn’t have money to pay for the legal costs. She also told Joe that she did not intend to deceive him and that if Joe pays for her annulment proceedings, she would marry him. Joe, so in love with Joy, readily forgave her and even sent her a few thousand dollars to get the annulment case filed as soon as possible and that he will pay for all the costs associated with it.

After a few weeks passed, the annulment case had not been filed and Joy asked for more money to pay for her children’s school tuition fees. Again, Joe sent her money. A month after, he also sent a good amount of money to help Joy pay for personal loans. Months passed, Joy has kept asking him money for various reasons --a child got sick, house repairs, monthly allowance for food and utilities, a new car, helping her parents and siblings. In the meantime, the annulment case had not even been filed.

At this time, Joe was getting to be very suspicious of Joy’s motives. So he traveled back to the Philippines without Joy’s knowledge and wanted to investigate for himself what was going on. Much to his surprise, when he went to Joy’s house, he personally saw that she was living in with another man and that all the money he sent her was just used to finance Joy’s capricious lifestyle. Joe asked if she still wants to marry him, Joy admitted that she had never been in love with him right from the start. She thought she might fall for him but their long distance relationship prove to be very hard for her to endure (what’s ironic is that Joy did not seem to have a problem receiving his money transfers despite the distance!).

Joe came back to the US a lost man with a broken heart and a shattered soul. He thought he already had the woman that he could spend the rest of his life with. He felt used, abused, and could not bear to trust another Filipina again.

Certainly, Joy’s case is not a reflection of the actual state of relationships between Filipinas and foreigners. But, this is also not the only one. So, to all of you who have relationships with foreigners, not just Americans. Please be in a relationship because you love him and not see him as your ticket out of poverty. Do not abuse the generosity of your foreign partners. Do not destroy the reputation of the rest of the Filipinos because of your own selfish agenda.