When the viral video of Gail Francesca —Francis Magalona’s alleged 15-year-old daughter — and her mother Abegail Rait reached its end mark, I locked my phone’s screen shut and curled up in bed.
Typically, I comment on intriguing public statements using my Instagram account Miss Chief Editor. Every day brings real-world situations I use as case studies to evangelize writing and communicating with substance, structure, and style.
But this story hit home.
Ten years ago, I discovered — by a relative’s slip of the tongue — that my own father, who had been absent for most of my life, had six other children. Turns out, it’s not just celebrities who have secret families.
My dog, perhaps sensing my gloom, crawled into the small space between my knees and my heart. I hit my phone’s lock button. The screen glowed. I scrolled through the comments.
The netizens were still kind. One user typed: “Mad respect kay Ma'am! Sobrang hirap sa part niya! Will wait for her na mapanuod sa TV and sa music Industry!” Another wrote: “Ito lang ang episode na talagang tinapos ko sayo boss toyo... Nakaka-goosebumps talaga at salute sa mag-ina.”
Strangely, I, too, felt sympathy for this family. The way Abegail narrated her story, and dropped her lines with perfect dramatic timing — they all struck a chord in my heart.
“Me and my daughter exist,” she declared. “He loved us, and that’s a fact.” I felt the pain of longing and validation. I, too, longed for my father’s love.
As more people watched the video, the sexist and misogynist comments began flooding in. My Harvard-trained “Miss Chief Editor” self, knowledgeable about inclusive language, knew the problem with the word “mistress”: a term that frames the woman as responsible for the affair, while the man is overlooked. Even the Associated Press Stylebook — my style bible — recommends “phrasing that acknowledges both people in the relationship: ‘The two were romantically or sexually involved.’”
But my inner self, the thirty-something that lay in a fetal position, just felt empty.
When I found out about her existence, I saw this woman in my father’s life as a villain: an enabler of the economic struggle we went through because she birthed six additional mouths for my father to feed. I wrestled with the idea of this secret woman I have never even met, and imagined my secret half-siblings luxuriating in the presence of a father while I learned to live without one.
In the only Catholic country aside from the Vatican that forbids divorce, where annulment is financially inaccessible for most families, the lines become blurred when two people, bound by the institution of marriage, separate. For those less forthcoming, secret families are an unfortunate result.
Sometime in the entire decade of us not knowing about my father’s secret life, when he made weekly visits to see us, my mother brought up getting an annulment. My father only fell silent.
Ending a marriage brings guilt and shame. And men, at least those like my father, do not like admitting failure. They would rather live with their secret.
After I gathered my composure to share my take, one of my readers commented: “If divorce is the option to end the marital relationship, then marriage would become easily disposable for families, for us. My instructor taught us…that marriage should be founded on love and respect and that the Constitution protects the essence of family. I apologize for my comment, but I appreciate your post because I am able to reassess mine as well.”
To this, I replied: “I really really wish marriages didn’t end, and my parents’ didn’t, but the reality is that they do. Marriages end every day whether we acknowledge them or not. Hugs to you.”
There are some 14 to 15 million solo parents in the Philippines, according to a World Health Organization-funded study. Ninety-five percent of them are women.
But this statistic is even more alarming: 20 percent of marriages in the Philippines will be broken, and 82 percent of those involve children.
The denial of the collapse of marriage —whether in private or in public— caused my father to build this secret world. I can only surmise that this was also the case for Francis M. Whatever the case, whether it’s a systemic problem exacerbated by the patriarchy, or simply a series of isolated cases, the bearer of the most anguish in these situations are the children.
Nobody deserves to only be loved in secret: it’s the reason why we post pictures of engagements on social media, and ~*hard launch*~ relationships on Instagram. George Lopez's character Alphonso says this in the ensemble rom-com Valentine’s Day: “For some people, love doesn't exist unless you acknowledge it in front of other people.”
I have friends from both sides — products of broken families, as well as children born outside of marriage. It’s safe to say we’ve all marched into a therapist’s office.
We do our best to heal the pain for the rest of our lives. A pain caused by what we feel for our fathers: unexpressed love.
It exists, too — in secret.
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