Mrs Rosero. Regina Rosero. Regina Layug-Rosero. I suppose this change has been en route for the past 6 years, but it’s still a little jarring to see sometimes.

A few months ago I received an invitation to a press conference, something I had to attend for work. The letter was addressed to “Ms. Regina Rosero”.

Back in June, I requested copies of our marriage certificate from the NSO. Naturally, I used my maiden name when I filed the request. A week later, Air 21 delivered the documents to our house. The village guard called our house and asked, “Meron po ba diya’ng Layug, Regina? May Air 21 delivery po kasi,” said Bernadette, our security guard.

“Ako yun,” I said, laughing. It’s funny, but sometimes it stings a little that there are people who will not know me by my own name.

It isn’t a new story, or a new feeling. For decades women have had to struggle with the question, “Why must I take my husband’s name?” If it isn’t your husband’s, it’s your father’s name. What name is really your own anyway?

For decades, women have tried to solve the problem. Many have accepted their multiple roles as independent women, as wives, as daughters, as sisters, as mothers, and they have chosen to embody this multitude of roles by hyphenating. Many are hyphenated women.

I think I first encountered the term in college. As a Literature major, I studied various texts about identity, gender, culture, and so on, and you can’t read all that literature without having to read all sorts of critique and analysis and crap. I never enjoyed literary theory, but (naturally, I suppose) I enjoyed women’s studies. Women’s identities as they transformed from one form to another, as they shifted from daughter and sister to lover and wife, then to the all-encompassing role of mother. But though we grow and move from one role to another, we never really shed our old skins. They cling to us throughout our lives, and that multiplicity is encompassed in that tiny hyphen, the one that bridges our old identities with the new.

I’ve been surrounded by hyphenated women all my life. My mother, also a writer, raised me in the company of her friends from college, collectively known as the Sisterhood. The Sisterhood is composed of writers, strong women who had strong feelings and opinions about women’s lib, women’s health, women’s rights, everything women. And three of them who were married chose to hyphenate their professional names, such that all who read their work knew that they had identities and personalities of their own before they married.

So it’s funny how, eight years after college, here I am, a Hyphenated Woman myself.

There’s no point in hyphenating my last name legally, as that will just cause confusion when my given name is already so kilometric. So I decided to change my name in all my legal papers to my married name.

As I consulted various friends, it’s funny how so many of them said, “But you don’t have to do that.” It seems more of my friends are pro-Independent Woman than I realized. And I had to say to them, “I know, but when we have kids they’ll carry my husband’s name anyway, and if I use a different name there will be confusion legally, and I’d like to avoid all that.”

But I did consider keeping my name. For a brief moment before I applied for a new postal ID, I saw my name written out with my husband’s last name, and there was a little stab at my heart. Is this how it feels to shed an old life and start anew? How many other women have felt this sense of loss as they bid their father’s name goodbye and accepted their husband’s as their own? I am not the first, and I certainly won’t be the last, but that didn’t make the shock of my new name any less startling.

Then I went ahead and filled up the form, and presented the marriage certificate, and the clerk at the post office banged away at her typewriter, the typebar emphatically spelling out my new name: Regina Teresita Magdalena L. Rosero. A week later I claimed my new ID, and I stared at it with fascination as I contemplated my new identity. I joked to my neighbor and college friend, Mary Ann, “Look, I no longer exist! A new person has taken my place!”

Though legally Regina Teresita Magdalena Layug no longer exists, all my bylines now use Regina Layug-Rosero. I insist on this, because despite my hullaballoo about shedding the identity I had established over my 28 years, I am actually proud to carry my husband’s name. Like many women before me, I embrace my new identity, my new family, my new name. My in-laws are wonderful people who accept me not as a daughter-in-law, but as their own daughter, and my brother-in-law is as close to me as my own blood brother. No longer am I simply the daughter of Marian and Fer, but also of Baby and Boy; no longer am I simply sister to Victor, but now also to Ron; no longer am I simply myself, Regina, but now I am also wife to Oneal.

I’m proud to be this new person, even if it does still take some getting used to. But it’s all me.

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Just discovered these videos posted by Oneal’s brother, Ron. Here are Oneal and his parents waiting for the processional to start. This video and the ones I’ll post next were taken with a Flip camera.

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Oneil & Rej from Paul Macasaet on Vimeo.

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Even when we knew what we had to do, things seemed hopeless.

The confirmation certificate:

Come Tuesday, December 15, we called Mount Carmel, and the verdict was out on my confirmation certificate: the Diocese said we had to get a copy of the original from Abu Dhabi, or at least some sort of certification stating that the confirmation had indeed taken place on the date and at the place we claimed in the original certificate we presented.

Great. How were we supposed to do that? There was an address for the Vicar Apostolic of Arabia on my certificate, but it was just a PO Box. All seemed bleak.

The birth certificate:

As the parish instructed, I went to the City Hall of the municipality where I was born, Manila. Fortunately, Mom was also born in Manila, so if I needed any of her documents from the Local Civil Registry Office (LCRO) it would be one less thing to worry about. At least, that’s what I thought.

I got a copy of Mom’s birth certificate, and made photocopies of mine, and prepared all the wedding documents and my own papers of all sorts from various government offices. Thus armed, I made my way to Manila City Hall on December 17. Fortunately, Tita Baby was able to spare her driver, Dexter, so I didn’t need to contend with traffic or a horrid commute in addition to my already significant distress.

I arrived at Manila City Hall, and found the LCRO. At the entrance was a large table manned by at least four employees, and their sole responsibility, it seemed, was to figure out what people needed to do with their birth, death or marriage certificate, and give them the proper set of requirements and instructions. Given the mass of people who went through that office every single day, it was no wonder they assigned four people to the table. On it, arranged from one end to the other, front to back, were neatly arranged stacks of paper, each stack a different set of instructions and requirements. There were so many different stacks that you couldn’t see the table’s surface. Did I mention that this table was nigh inaccessible? So many people needed corrections on their birth certificates that there was literally a swarm at the LCRO entrance.

My problem was “Correction of Clerical Error on the Middle Name or Mother’s Name of Unmarried Petitioner.” When you think about how specific that is, then you can understand why there were so many variations on the requirements. If I were married, I would have to submit a longer list of papers. The requirements would be different if it were my father’s name I had to change, or my birth date, or my birth place… the list of permutations goes on.

So after explaining the problem in as calm and polite a manner as I could to the nice young man in front of me, I got my list of requirements. One look at it and I was ready to give up. I mean, how would you feel if you saw this list?

1. 2 latest certified/local copies and 2 latest NSO copies of birth certificate to be corrected (That would be mine.)
2. 2 latest certified copies of birth certificate/death certificate of mother. If certification of no record was issued please submit birth certificate or marriage contract of mother’s 2 brother or sister.
3. 2 latest certified copies of marriage contract of parents. If certification of no record was issued please submit birth certificate or marriage contract of 2 brother or sister.
4. 2 copies of baptismal certificate (I don’t know why they need this.)
5. 2 copies of school record, Elementary, High School or College (form 137 or transcript of records)
6. 2 certified copies of voter’s registration record/voters affidavit (COMELEC)
7. 2 copies valid ID of the petitioner and the document owner and 1 copy of latest community tax certificate from the place of work or residence
8. Other documents which the Office may consider relevant and necessary for the approval of the Petition. (GSIS/SSS records, Medical Records, Business Records, School Records, Insurance, Land Title, Bank Passbook)

NOTE: (This was on my set of instructions and requirements) All marriage contract, birth and death certificates to be submitted should be latest certified xerox copy when issued in Manila, if issued outside Manila, Security Paper from NSO.

Steps to Follow:

1. Submit all requirements for assessment and initial interview. Please bring all original documents and ID.
2. Preparation of petition paper.
3. Final Interview
4. Pay at Taxpayer’s Lounge.
5. Receiving and filing of petition paper and all documents.

I already had some of those documents, since they were also required by the church. Some of the others I thought I could easily acquire. I figured, I would spend a day gathering the documents, and I could come back the next day to file the petition.

Well, you know how such assumptions fare. Suffice to say that the odyssey of compiling all the required documents was so arduous a journey that to write it all down now would simply take too much time and far, far too many words. There’s gonna be a part 3 to this series of travails, and it’s going to be bloody. All I will say now is that the worst part of the ordeal was that I was all alone when I started gathering and requesting the requirements at Manila City Hall that day, and the initial disappointment was so devastating that I burst into tears right in the middle of the LCRO while whining to Oneal over the phone. “How the hell do I know how to get to the hospital where I was born?” I bawled, not caring about the masses who walked past me as I hiccuped and sniffed in my distress.

The baptismal certificate:

Oneal’s baptismal certificate seemed the least of our worries. The Jose in his name was just put there because in 1973, priests refused to baptize children unless they had Christian names. I suppose back then what counted as a Christian name only included English, Filipinized or Hispanicized names of saints. I think they’re less fussy about names now.

Mount Carmel told us that we would have to go back to San Vicente de Paul and ask them how to correct or amend his baptismal certificate. So after my initial foray to Manila City Hall and a sad, lonely lunch (which I couldn’t even finish) at SM Manila, I ventured to the church to inquire about the process. It seems this is a common problem, because when I explained to the parish office what I needed, they gave me a small slip of paper with a short list of requirements: notarized letter of request, photocopy of the baptismal certificate, and a valid ID. Oneal would have to submit the request to the parish, and they would give him a letter which he would have to bring to the Office of the Chancery in Intramuros. They were the only ones authorized to make the correction on the baptismal certificate; I supposed they were the Church’s version of the LCRO.

Next to my mountain of problems, this was quite a petite molehill. But with everything we needed to do, I found that I was just so tired and stressed that the mere thought of visiting another city hall, another government office, or another parish office made me dizzy. I found myself looking to the heavens and asking God, “Is this a sign? Are you telling us to stop? Don’t you want us to get married?”

Calling me disheartened at this point would have been a gross understatement. But we trudged on. I even managed to make it to Karen’s condo that evening for a small geek dinner, but I was so exhausted that I fell asleep on the couch.

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Some of you know by now the trials and tribulations we suffered in December in our attempts to prepare our documents for the wedding. Some of you have no idea what we’ve been up to. Well, here’s the long blog post.

When we reserved the St. Francis of Assisi Chapel at Fernwood Gardens, we had to go to the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in Project 6, since the chapel was under their care/authority (“Tyranny” would be more appropriate.  But I get ahead of myself.) So we booked the chapel for our date, and the parish office gave us a list of requirements. It was a pretty long list, but it didn’t seem that bad when we first saw it. Hah, unbeknownst to us, we were about to embark on a journey that would take us to many City Halls and churches . (And I just wanted to use the word “unbeknownst”.)

Just so we’re all on the same page, boys and girls, here’s the list of requirements they asked of the bride and the groom:

1. NSO-certified birth certificate
2. NSO-issued CENOMAR
3. Newly-issued baptismal certificate, with the annotation, “For Marriage Purposes”
4. Newly-issued confirmation certificate, with the annotation, “For Marriage Purposes”
5. Wedding banns and permit to marry
6. Marriage license from the municipality where either the groom or the bride reside
7. Latest 2×2 picture with white background
8. Pre-marriage counseling seminar
9. Canonical interview
10. Final interview and confession

All documents must be dated within 6 months of the wedding, and submitted two months before the wedding. Okay, seems easy enough. The birth certificate and CENOMAR could be ordered and paid for online through the NSO website, and would be delivered right to our doorstep, no problem. The baptismal certificates were easy; Oneal was baptized in San Vicente de Paul Church in Manila, right beside Adamson University. I was baptized in Santo Domingo Church in QC. Both were fairly accessible.

The confirmation certificates, we knew, would require some effort. Oneal didn’t remember what year he was confirmed, but he knew where. I, on the other hand, was confirmed on the sly, in the US Embassy in Riyadh, by an Italian bishop from the Vicar Apostolic of Arabia, which was based in Abu Dhabi. I had the original certificate though; surely Mount Carmel would be satisfied with that? After all, they couldn’t possibly expect me to hop on a plane to Riyadh or Abu Dhabi to get my confirmation certificate. Could they?

The wedding banns were easy; these were documents issued by Mount Carmel and posted in our respective parish churches for three consecutive Sundays, to inform our communities of our upcoming marriage. For the uninformed, this is done to give others the chance to present any possible impediment to the wedding before the actual event. Should no objection be raised, the parish churches will give the bride and the groom permission to marry.

The marriage license we thought would be tricky. We decided to file for it in Parañaque, since Oneal had live there all his life, and had many documents attesting to the fact. I, on the other hand, have lived in Saudi Arabia, Kamias, Antipolo and Cubao, so my documents had rather scattered addresses. To our surprise, the requirements for the marriage license were simple enough. Some documents and one hour of forms, photocopying, payments and “counseling” in Parañaque City Hall were all it took, and one week later we had our marriage license! Well, there was a surprise.

The pre-cana seminar proved to be a case of misunderstanding and annoyance. We had wanted to take the pre-cana seminar at the Center for Family Ministries in Ateneo de Manila University, as it came well-recommended by many people. Oneal asked Mount Carmel if this was okay, and a nice lady said it was. So we reserved a slot in a CEFAM’s January schedule, and I deposited a payment of P4,000. That was a bust, but more on that later.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

That weekend, Oneal and I went to Mount Carmel to submit our documents, confident that it would be a breeze. We had everything in order, and we figured we could just explain about my confirmation certificate being rather, ah, inaccessible. Alas, we were very gravely mistaken.

They noticed in my documents–specifically my birth certificate and my baptismal certificate–that my mother’s name was not consistent: one document said only “Marian” while others said “Marian Regina”. This apparently was unacceptable, because there must be NO DISCREPANCIES among any of the documents. They asked me what my mother’s name really was, and I said, “Marian Regina.” The parish office told us, well, you’re going to have to have your birth certificate corrected at city hall. They were willing to proceed with the marriage, but only if I submitted (1) an affidavit stating I would correct my birth certificate and not hold the parish liable for any conflict arising from the discrepancy in names; and (2) a Certificate for Facilitation of Correction of my birth certificate from the Local Civil Registry Office of the City Hall of the municipality in which I was born. Oh, and (3) a copy of my corrected birth certificate, to follow after the wedding.

Did you get all of that? I didn’t, because I was so dismayed by all that the parish office guy was saying that I almost burst into tears right there and then.

Of course, parish office guy wasn’t done. He said he had to consult the Diocese of Cubao about my confirmation certificate. Not content, he also said that Oneal’s baptismal certificate would be a problem, because his name was stated there as “Jose Ronnelo Rosero”; none of his other documents bore the name “Jose.” He would have to go back to San Vicente de Paul, and they would issue a letter so he could bring it to the Office of the Chancery in Intramuros, where an amendment would be made.

And for the big finale: we were required to take the pre-cana seminar in Mount Carmel, and even if we had taken the seminar at CEFAM, it would not be sufficient. So the slot we had reserved and the payment I had made were all in vain.

We went back home, rather dismayed, and wondered what to do next. Well, I knew what I was doing next: lying in bed and moping, tears streaming down my face as I wondered, “What are we supposed to do now?” It was like a giant rock had been dropped in our path, and there was no way around it.

- rej

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Donation to the GMA Kapuso Foundation, September 2008, SM Marikina

As you may have noticed, we update the wedsite sporadically, but when we do, we post a lot of stuff! I usually write the long entries, and Oneal fiddles around with the code.

This time, we’ve added links to the websites of our suppliers, removed some clutter, and changed a few settings. Please feel free to leave a comment or two (or more)!

Also, please check out our other pages, as we’ve posted some updates:

• The 501st Legion
• Punkin
• Hunny Bunny
• Ceremony
• Reception
• Charity

– rej

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the wed-site or wed-blog (yes, those are actual terms used) is up and running, we’ve updated some of the pages with details about us. we’ll be posting more information about our wedding plans right here, so keep checking back for more news.
for the past few months we’ve been attending bridal fairs in different places, food tasting by different caterers, we’ve also checked out most of the recommended event venues around Metro Manila, we have our preferred suppliers & places but we also want to get our families opinion, as well as their support for our decisions.

as you probably have guessed, we will be having a Star Wars themed wedding, which means its not just the bride & groom who will be in costume, the entourage will also have costumes appropriate to the ceremony. everything will be tasteful and done up to 501st Legion standards, and that means it will be movie-quality if not screen-accurate. NO we will not be wearing our armor to the wedding.

some good friends have already agreed to help with parts of the ceremony, the reception & the preparations, thank you so much, we will post more information on who are going to be involved soon, this is the reason why we are allocating more than a year for preparations. its not going to be easy, but it will definitely be memorable.

– oneal

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For months we had been trying to figure out how to tell our parents about our plans to get married, we couldn’t very well tell our friends too soon, news has a tendency to leak rather quickly. So on November 16, 2008 we tricked our respective families into going all the way to Makati for dinner, they did not know what we were all meeting up in my friend’s restaurant Solihiya in Greenbelt 5.

Good thing more stores opened up in the new Greenbelt 5, Rej got stuck in bad traffic along C5 due to the Rhianna concert in the Fort, while i had to stall while my parents kept wanting to go to the resto for dinner already.

as soon as Rej arrived with her family, we had sat down to order food, everyone still thinking there was a special new menu we were invited to try so nobody ordered a full meal. we sprung the news on them to much surprise, but everyone figured it was inevitable.

speeches & tears all around
– oneal

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