MANILA — The law punishing violence against women and their children (VAWC) applies to lesbian relationships, the Supreme Court clarified in a ruling that sets the record straight on the applicability of the law.

In a Dec. 7, 2022 resolution by its Third Division, the high court affirmed for the first time the prosecution under the law of a woman in a same-sex relationship.

This was in connection with a petition filed by a lesbian against her partner who had accused her of physical abuse.

The partner claimed that the petitioner had crushed her hands repeatedly with a car door, causing a fracture on her left wrist that required surgery and physical therapy.

An information or criminal charge for violation of Republic Act No. 9262 (or the VAWC law) was filed before a regional trial court in 2018, which the petitioner sought to quash on the ground that the law allegedly does not apply to lesbian relationships.

The lower court junked the motion citing the 2013 Supreme Court ruling in Garcia vs. Drilon which explained that section 3(a) of the VAWC law uses the gender-neutral word “person” who has or had a sexual or dating relationship with the woman, when referring to who might be held criminally liable under the law.

Due to the confidentiality of VAWC cases, ABS-CBN News is withholding the names of the parties involved or any details that might lead to their identification.

SC RULING

In her Supreme Court petition, the petitioner claimed that the ruling on the inclusion of lesbian relationships under the VAWC law in the Garcia case was a mere obiter dictum, which means, it was just supposedly a judge’s incidental expression of opinion which was not the main ruling in the case and could not be cited as a precedent in succeeding cases.

She pointed out that the Garcia case involved a man and a woman, not a lesbian relationship.

But the high court, speaking through Associate Justice Henri Jean Paul Inting, denied the petition saying that the issue of the applicability of the VAWC law on lesbian relationships was exactly the same issue discussed in the Garcia ruling.

The Supreme Court in the Garcia case had rejected the husband’s claim that RA 9262 was discriminatory and violated the equal protection clause because it allegedly punishes only the husbands or the fathers.

“There is likewise no merit to the contention that R.A. 9262 singles out the husband or father as the culprit. As defined above, VAWC may likewise be committed ‘against a woman with whom the person has or had a sexual or dating relationship.’ Clearly, the use of the gender-neutral word ‘person’ who has or had a sexual or dating relationship with the woman encompasses even lesbian relationships,” it said.

In the new ruling, Justice Inting explained that “the applicability of the law to lesbian relationships is clearly a resolution of the particular issue raised in Garcia and not a mere obiter dictum or an opinion of the Court.”

“The statement of the Court that ‘[t]here is likewise no merit to the contention that RA 9262 singles out the husband or father as the culprit’ further amplifies that the issue of whether RA 9262 only applies to male perpetrators was indeed raised in the said case,” he said.

“Applying the case of Garcia, the motion to quash information filed by the petitioner on the ground that the facts charged therein do not constitute an offense utterly lacks basis. Wherefore, the petition is denied,” he added.

Associate Justices Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa, Samuel Gaerlan and Maria Filomena Singh concurred with Inting.

In her concurring opinion, Singh cited the deliberations of the bicameral conference committee meeting to show congressional intent to extend the protection of the VAWC law to women in lesbian relationships.

She also explained that the equal protection clause under the Constitution dictates that women in lesbian relationships be similarly protected as those in heterosexual relationships.

“By interpreting the Anti-VAWC Act to cover all women subject to intimate partner violence regardless of the gender, gender expression or sexual orientation of the victim and the abuser, the Court recognizes that even women who do not conform to what is generally defined as ‘normal’ or traditional relationship structures are protected by the law,” she said.

“When the law states that it protects women who are victims of domestic abuse, it protects all women without qualification,” she concluded.

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