Because of High Society Scandals: Franciso Madrigal charged with Concubinage

(From the Philippine Daily Inquirer)

A scion of the landed Madrigal clan has sued her husband—himself heir to the vast Ortigas property development fortune—for concubinage after the latter allegedly took his wife’s best friend as his mistress and cohabited with her in a Pasig City townhouse jointly owned by the spouses.

More importantly, 63-year-old Susana Madrigal Bayot-Ortigas accused her husband, 65-year-old former ambassador to Mexico Francisco M. Ortigas III of having a string of affairs over their four-decade-long marriage, including having sex with one of their household helpers in their own marital bed.
“The painful truth is that I married an abuser, a scrooge, an incorrigible philanderer and worse, a pervert,” Bayot-Ortigas said in a 75-page complaint affidavit filed last month with the Pasig prosecutor’s office.

“Our marriage, contrary to how it is perceived in high society, has been marked by years of intimidation, harassment, repeated psychological and verbal abuse, all courtesy of my husband, respondent Paqui.”
The accusation of concubinage was leveled against Ortigas (nicknamed “Paqui”) and his “alleged mistress,” Ma. Antonia Legarda (or “Marian,” reportedly aged 64) for “cohabiting and having sexual intercourse under scandalous circumstances during our marriage,” Bayot-Ortigas said.

She said that before she decided to file the complaint, she had been warned that doing so would ‘’only add to my embarrassment and humiliation.’’

‘’I have been discouraged to file this case because I was told that we live in a society which is forgiving of philandering husbands,’’ she said. ‘’I have no wish to air dirty laundry in public.’’

But the respondents’ alleged acts ‘’were not only immoral and by law a violation of the marital vows that Paqui and I took. They are also unlawful, horrendous and demeaning, and for which there must be adequate recompense under the law,’’ Bayot-Ortigas stressed.