Legal issues

In 2003, Jennifer Cagandahan went to court because she wanted some changes in her birth certifcate. Specifically, she wanted “Jennifer” to be changed to Jeff and her gender changed from female to male. The reason — Congenital adrenal hyperplasia. She presented medical documentation to support her claim. The regional trial court granted her wish.
Then the [...]

Continue reading 'Jennifer (or Jeff) Cagandahan and Congenital adrenal hyperplasia' →

(Yesterday’s column)
“How to get sued” is a hilarious yet truthful look into the world of litigation. Its author, J. Craig Williams, is a practicing lawyer in California and is one of my earliest online acquaintances when I started blogging in 2003. I went on to write for the print media; Craig became a broadcast media [...]

Continue reading 'Love and lawsuits' →

When I was in in the third grade, there was a parent who complained that I didn’t deserve the “First Honor” title. According to her, it was her son who should be the First Honor. It’s not the grades. My grades and her son’s side by side, no contest — his grades weren’t better than [...]

Continue reading 'Parents vs. school principal: The case of Susan Reed' →

Over a month ago, I wrote a column that was inspired by Gabriele Pauli’s proposal to limit marriage to seven years — with an option to renew, of course. I won’t repeat the issues I raised save to say that the permanence of marriage is more of a religious/cultural characteristic rather than a legal one.
In [...]

Continue reading 'Forced marriages, arranged marriages' →

This is really strange. A man suffered from a fall while at work and “the injury unleashed a libido that could not be kept in check.” What’s even more strange is that he sued his employer and received a whopping £3 million ($6.2 million) in damages.
Stephen Tame, 29, had been married for eight months when [...]

Continue reading 'Bump in the head makes one horny?' →

Marriage as an institution must really be in serious trouble if spouses need to be drugged in order to make their marriage work.
According to James Hughes, a bioethicist at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut some drugs could help jump-start a failing marriage by heightening bonding and trust. Oxytocin helps increase trust, and vasopressin in particular [...]

Continue reading 'Drugs can save marriage… huh?!?' →

I’m not a believer that, once married, “what is mine, is yours.” I used to kid my husband that if I were to articulate it, it would be, “What is yours, is mine, and what is mine, is mine.” Kidding aside, even in the absence of a pre-nuptial agreement to keep each spouse’s properties separate, [...]

Continue reading 'Pre-nuptial agreement' →

It wasn’t until the Anti-Rape Law took effect in 1997 that the Philippines finally acknowledged that there is such a thing as marital rape. I used to think that the government should have done that much, much earlier. Actually, I still do. That’s why I was more than a bit surprised to read that in [...]

Continue reading 'No marital rape in Singapore' →

Under Art. 55 of the Family Code of the Philippines, a petition for legal separation may be filed when there is repeated physical violence or grossly abusive conduct directed against the petitioner, a common child, or a child of the petitioner.
Note that repeated physical violence is required. I’m wondering what the interval between the violent [...]

Continue reading 'Physical violence and legal separation' →

When you marry, you marry a stranger. It doesn’t matter how long you have known the man, sometimes, even after a lifetime, one doesn’t truly get to know a person. If the risks for women in “ordinary” traditional relationships are real, the risks can even be greater when a woman marries someone she has only [...]

Continue reading 'Filipina’s husband sentenced for her murder' →