Relationship abuse: Fight back
by Lysa Lorena
?Hindi ka na makakalabas sa kwartong ?to!? ?Itatali na kita!? 
I remember it as vividly as if it happened only yesterday.
I remember the room in that shanty in Quezon City. The tiny room with no windows.
I remember the sounds of the continuous slaps. How wood hit skin. How skin gave way to blood.
I remember how I held on to the iron bar with the clothes hanging on them.
How my tormentor clutched huge clumps of my hair and forcefully yanked them.
I thought that holding on to the iron bar will save me. But it was torn off the wall.
Clothes fell on me while I was dragged to the door, hair and head first.
I remember feigning faint if only for it all to stop.
I remember NOT fighting back.
I remember all of these while I am listening to a client talk about her experience with domestic violence. As a paralegal in a law firm, I need to go over her testimony in order to file a complaint in court tomorrow. Violence against women and children is after all, a crime.
She is crying as she recounts her story.
How her husband beat her up. How he pointed a gun to her head as she ran away from him. How she worries for the welfare of her children. How at first she was so afraid of coming out with her story.
Midway through her story, I am already in tears too. I am crying for her. But I am also crying for me.
After three years, I am finally crying the unshed tears of long ago.
When I struggled against the belt that was tied around my wrists.
When I put my hair down to cover the bruises on my face as I fled the place.
When even months after the incident, the nagging feeling that someone was following me remained.
I did not fight back then. I even blamed myself for what happened. I stopped going to class and my grades fell. I did not know what to do, where to go for help. Because of what happened, I felt dirty. I feared castigation from my peers.
But not anymore. This woman in front of me needs my help. And I owe it to her and to thousands* of other victims of domestic violence, to fight this war. My years in the law school gave me the weapons I need to fight back. And I will.
Although, truth be told, I?m scared. I admit that even until now I?m still scared. The trauma of three years ago still clings to the innermost recesses of my mind. I try to exorcise these demons, but in my vulnerable moments, these nightmares of long ago still creep up to haunt my nights.
These demons even seep into my waking hours, especially whenever I run across difficult provisions of law and even more difficult batterer-opponents who seem to have no issue with twisting the law to suit their whims and caprices. When these happen, I remember the countless other women who are confronted with the same situation, but who do not know what to do and where to go to for help. What they would give for someone like me to advocate their cause. I draw deeper into my arsenal of legal knowledge and I fight harder for them.
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Now that I know the story behind what goes bump in the night. Now that I know how to fight it. Now that I know that I fight the good fight. I will not hesitate to fight back.
*According to the data from the Philippine National Police Women and Children Protection Center (PNP-WCPC), in 2008 alone, there were 3,599 reported cases of domestic abuse in the Philippines.
- If you or someone you love is a victim of domestic violence, feel free to contact the author through the editors of themis.ph. Help is just one click away. Domestic violence is violence you can stop. We can stop.
- The author is currently reviewing for the bar examinations, motivated by her grim determination to do her part in ending domestic violence in the Philippines.
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The author: Lysa Lorena is not the real name of the author. Due to the sensitivity of this article, the real author requested to use a pseudo name.
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