The Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that Republic Act 9262, or the Anti-Violence Against Women and Their Children Act of 2004 (Anti-VAWC Act), grants protection to women-victims not only from men, but also from women with whom they are in an intimate relationship.

In a decision penned by Senior Associate Justice Marvic M.V.F. Leonen, the Court en banc last 16 April denied the challenge posed by petitioner Roselyn Agacid, a woman accused of physical violence against her partner of four years, also a woman.

The petitioner had been charged in an information with violating RA 9262, which she moved to quash on the ground that the law did not operate against her, she being a woman.

Agacid asserted that the law was “intended to protect women and their children from the abusive acts of men and not women.”

Rejecting this argument, the Regional Trial Court of Quezon City denied the motion to quash. The Court of Appeals, in turn, found no grave abuse of discretion in the lower court’s ruling.

The Supreme Court agreed with the trial court in rejecting Agacid’s argument, unanimously ruling that the Anti-VAWC Act applies “even if the perpetrator is a woman, so long as the victim is a woman.”

It clarified that the offense under the law may be committed by any person against a woman or her child.

“The nature of this social legislation is to empower women who find themselves in situations where they are left vulnerable to their abusers who are their intimate partners,” the Court said.

It said that gender is a cultural issue, which leads some women to absorb the patriarchal culture that women “are proper subjects of dominance” in intimate relationships. Regardless of who the perpetrator is, it said, a woman being a victim of violence is enough to trigger the law’s protection.