Who protects the protector’s wife?

I often leave online radio or TV news playing while I do the usual schoolwork. Checking papers. Fixing files. Answering messages. Sometimes I am listening closely; sometimes it is just there in the background.

Lately, though, I have caught myself turning it off.

There was a story about a uniformed man accused of hurting his partner. Then another. A few days later, another one came along. Different names, different places, but something about the stories felt disturbingly familiar. At some point, I found myself asking a question I had never really asked before: What happens when the person trained to protect people becomes the person someone at home is afraid of?

The recent case in Pasay City is difficult to shake off. A woman identified as “Kara” filed complaints against her live-in partner, a police staff sergeant, alleging years of physical and emotional abuse. She submitted CCTV footage that reportedly showed him hitting and kicking her. In one recording, she was carrying their four-year-old child while she was being beaten. In another, the officer was seen holding a firearm and pointing it at her.

The case is now going through criminal and administrative proceedings. The officer, like anyone accused of wrongdoing, is entitled to due process. That needs to be said. But it is also difficult to watch those images and pretend the questions they raise begin and end with one couple in Pasay.

We have had Republic Act No. 9262 since 2004. RA 9262 covers more than physical violence. It also recognizes sexual, psychological, and economic abuse and provides protection for victims. And it challenges a familiar attitude: what happens inside a couple’s home is not always theirs alone to settle. Abuse does not become private once the door closes.

That becomes even harder when the accused person holds authority for a living.

A soldier or police officer can leave the uniform at the door. The power attached to it may be harder to leave there. He knows the system. He has training. He may have institutional connections. In some cases, he has access to a firearm. None of this means that uniformed men are abusive. Far from it. There are countless policemen and soldiers who go home and become husbands, fathers, sons, and partners who treat their families well. It would be both lazy and unfair to put them all under suspicion.

But when a uniformed man does become abusive, the imbalance of power can be frightening.

The Center for Women’s Resources said it documented at least 40 cases of state-perpetrated violence against women involving police and military personnel from 2022 to 2025. These included domestic abuse, physical and sexual violence, and killings. The group also believes such cases are underreported because fear, intimidation, and institutional silence can keep women from speaking (Bustamante, 2026).

Forty reported cases do not prove that abuse is common among policemen and soldiers. We should be careful with that conclusion. But forty is also forty too many, especially when the people involved belong to institutions we call when someone is in danger.

And this, for me, is where the issue becomes even more troubling.

What happens when a woman finally decides to report?

In 2024, Gemini Baladad publicly spoke about filing a violence-against-women complaint against her former husband, a retired three-star Army general. She said she was passed from one office to another and did not receive the support and protection she had hoped for. Another military wife, Tessa Luz Reyes-Sevilla, said other wives had privately reached out to her after she spoke publicly about her own experience. Some, she said, were afraid of retaliation. There was also the uncomfortable feeling that complaining against one’s husband somehow meant complaining against the institution itself (Abarca, 2024).

Try to imagine being the woman on the other side of that desk.

You have finally gathered enough courage to tell someone what has been happening at home. Then another thought enters your head: Does this officer know my husband? Did they train together? Is he his senior? His junior? His friend? Will they believe me? Will word get back to him before I even get home?

Perhaps every person receiving the complaint intends to do the right thing. Even then, the fear can be real.

This is why the response to the Pasay case matters. The officer was relieved from his assignment, his issued firearm was surrendered, and criminal and administrative proceedings were initiated. NAPOLCOM said due process would be observed. That is important for both sides. Accountability without due process can become another form of injustice. But due process should not become an excuse for doing nothing while a possible victim remains afraid.

Some women’s groups have also raised questions about the culture inside police and military organizations, particularly ideas about masculinity that can sometimes reward toughness, dominance, and keeping emotions buried (Bustamante, 2026). This deserves some care. Most of us would probably run from danger. Police officers and soldiers are sometimes expected to go the other way. That takes courage.

The danger comes when strength begins to mean control. When toughness means never admitting weakness. When authority at work quietly becomes authority over everyone at home.

Maybe that is why these stories have stayed with me long after I turned off the news.

A uniform is one of the most recognizable symbols of public trust. When trouble happens on the street and we see a police officer approaching, the natural thought is that help has arrived. But imagine being a woman for whom that same uniform means something entirely different. The person other people run to for protection is the person you are trying to get away from.

There is no contradiction in respecting our police and military while demanding accountability from those among them who abuse their power. In fact, the good men and women in uniform have much to lose when abusive colleagues are protected. Public trust is damaged less by admitting that an institution has bad actors than by giving people reason to believe it protects them.

Perhaps the real test comes when the person being complained about is one of your own.

Power does not always stay at the police station, military camp, or office when the workday ends. Sometimes it follows a person home.

And somewhere behind a closed door, a woman may be deciding whether to speak.

The question is whether she believes that when she finally does, the people sworn to protect her will hear a woman asking for help—not merely a colleague’s wife causing trouble.

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.