The other day, this TikTok video by Congresswoman Attorney Migs Nograles and it was...a weird wake-up call. She wasn't saying anything new, but hearing someone repeatedly say "Wala kayong rights!" in your face can really do a number on you. And with quite a number of people in our social media orbit announcing their engagements to one another, this really got me thinking about the need for me and Tobie to figure out alternate legal protections for our relationship given the Philippines does not recognize same-sex marriage, even when conducted in other countries.
Tobie and I have said that we should address this at some point - we just didn't know where to start. For a time, I was thinking about waiting for like our 20th anniversary to get the paperwork together and use this as a basis for a sort of commitment ceremony between us as empowered by whatever elaborate web of power of attorney documents and what have you in order to simulate the legal rights of being married. It wasn't a sexy idea, but it certainly felt a lot more effective than getting a marriage that our government won't recognize.
But the video was like a weird kick to just get it done now and not wait. Tobie and I have been together for over 15 years now and getting this paperwork done is pretty long overdue. So I finally bit the bullet and broached the topic to one of our lawyer friends to check if he had experience with this or if he could refer someone who does. He got pretty excited about the idea and so we seem to have formally begun the process of figuring out what is needed on the basis of an implied handshake. But what are friends for, right?
There are some major things we're hoping to tackle. The theoretically more immediate item is whatever is needed to ensure we have access to one another in cases of hospitalization and more importantly incapacitation. This is essentially what Quezon City's Right to Care Card covers - but they're the only LGU with that sort of a system in place. So we're going through the legwork now to have similar legal documents in place. The big question for later is about property and inheritance - but figuring out our wills will require a court appearance and other complications. We'll work our way toward that bit by bit.
We've already received the first draft of the healthcare power of attorney document because our friend clearly is as excited about this as we are. Like any other legal document, it's a little intimidating to have everything spelled out on paper but this is the only way to go about this in this country. Already, we have to make some decisions about backups and witnesses or whatever and we need to have conversations with people who may end up getting involved, even if just on paper.
Okay, that last sentence is funny. A lot of this is going to be "on paper" because legal shit and all that.
But yeah, we're finally getting this ball rolling. How real is that?
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