There wasn’t even a handshake.
Just a room in a library, where Vinny and I sat in front of an authorized officer and confirmed what we already knew: that we were each other’s person. That we’d built a life together, and wanted the law to see it too.
It didn’t feel like a milestone at the time. There were no speeches, rings, nor witnesses. But walking out of that room, I felt something settle in me – something I didn’t realize had been so heavy until it lifted.
In the Philippines, couples like us -queer couples – can spend years building lives together, but still end up legal strangers. You can share a home, raise a pet, care for each other through sickness and yet the law can look the other way.
Here in Australia, it took one form, a few IDs, and a processing fee. And in return, we became what the system calls “de facto partners” – a legal classification that doesn’t question our relationship, doesn’t ask for justification, and doesn’t need validation beyond our own word.
It means access. It means rights. It means that if something happens, we’re not invisible. It means we’re protected not just by each other, but by a system that recognizes we exist.
And it’s not perfect. Paperwork isn’t love. But the safety it brings is something many queer couples back home can’t even imagine having. There’s no version of that quiet room in Cavite or Quezon City. Not yet.
Sometimes I think about how different things could be if the system back home made space for people to choose each other and have that choice matter. If loving someone didn’t have to feel like a constant fight to be seen. If the law could simply catch up with the way people already live and love.
It’s not about marriage. It’s not even about the paper. It’s about being allowed to belong to each other in the eyes of the law, the way we’ve always belonged to each other in our hearts.
Imagine if more people had that. Imagine if love didn’t have to argue its case. If the world could be built a little softer, a little fairer.
Imagine if the systems we live under made it easier to love. Not harder.