This is a true story based on what I knew and what I was told by an officer of the Philippine Community Council-NSW. Names have been disguised to protect the identity of those people involved.
The tragic event happened not very long ago and the pretty wife now lives with one of their children overseas with no plans ever of returning to Sydney. The wife was a campus beauty queen when she was studying at Ateneo de Davao. He was a nobody studying at the same school, having been expelled from Ateneo de Manila University for academic deficiency.
Maybe the only mistake committed by Maria was to marry Alex (not his real name), with whom she has two sons.
The couple eventually migrated to Sydney where Maria — with her beauty and brains — got employed as a highly-paid finance executive. Alex became a mere clerk with a glorified title in customer service.
In his dire attempt to show his relatives and friends in Davao that he was successful in Australia, he somehow became an officer of PCC-NSW, a position he clung to since 2007. Thus, he marvelled in having photo shoots with Sydney politicians which he posted in facebook.
By any decent woman’s standard, Alex cannot be classified as good-looking or intelligent. Somehow, a fellow officer of PCC-NSW became attracted to him, as he bragged being an alumnus of Ateneo. The mere mention of ‘Ateneo’ gave him prestige. He never wanted to specify that he was from Ateneo de Davao and not from Ateneo de Manila University.
And so Margarita, a former Treasurer of the Filipino association, became his girlfriend in spite of her being married herself. Their illicit relationship was on and off while Margarita became his milking cow, oftentimes paying for their motel fees. But Margarita was not his only girlfriend. He had at least a couple of others — Evelyn, another married woman from Davao whom he met in the internet and another married Filipina from the United States.
Fed up with his womanizing activities, the wife finally accepted his offer of a divorce. He was not earning much from his employment and was incapable of supporting his two sons, who according to my informer, eventually despised him, mainly because he didn’t bother to communicate with them.
Credit card debts of Alex rose to such heights that debt collectors started haunting him. They even made an attempt to establish contact with a columnist of Philippine Sentinel who had nothing to do with Alex.
According to reliable sources, the debt-ridden Alex sought the help of his former wife for financial relief. He eventually learned that his ex-wife had retired from her job and was no longer in Sydney. He probably thought that he could get a share from the proceeds of the sale of the house where he used to live with his wife. There are reports that he never contributed to mortgage payments.
He is obviously in hiding and does not want to reveal his home address to anyone. When asked during a board meeting of the Philippine Community Council of NSW, he merely said to his colleagues that he kept on moving to a new address.
He continues to live in Sydney with his mistress from Davao who has children of her own. He even flaunts her during Filipino functions.