Cebu Daily News / News

http://globalnation.inquirer.net/cebudailynews/news/view_article.php?article_id=142428

My husband knew I was male – bride Cebu Daily News Posted date: June 13, 2008 “JUST meet me because I will accept you for whatever you are.” That statement from an American national was quoted by his male bride Lou Vincent Suarez to show the foreigner knew his Cebuano sweetheart, whom he met on the Internet, was not a woman even before their June 27, 2006 wedding. Suarez said he never hid his real gender from the 50-year-old American who came to Cebu for civil wedding rites before a judge. Suarez and the Americqan were married in Cebu City by Municipal Trial Court in Cities by Judge Rosabella Mondragon-Tormis three days after their first actual meeting. The American recently filed a petition for annulment to dissolve their marriage, insisting he didn’t know until their honeymoon that he had married a man. Suarez said they did not tell the judge of his true gender because the ceremony may not have pushed through. He said they even planned for him to undergo a sex- change operation in Thailand to be followed by a church wedding in 2007. Suarez said he was supposed to be the American’s s fourth “wife.” Suarez said he was surprised when the husband contacted him after months of no communication to say he would file a petition to annul their marriage. Suarez said he only knew the petition was filed when read about it in the newspapers. Suarez went to an AM radio station, Bombo Radyo, to air his side. Suarez said on radio that he already confessed to the American that he was gay before their wedding. He met the foreigner in an on-line dating service. They exchanged messages on the Internet for two months. Suarez said the American insisted on meeting with him despite the confession. They met at a fastfood outlet in Cebu City where, he said, both of them fell in love. In July 2007, Judge Tormis was one of four judges preventively suspended by the Supreme Court after a special investigation for their role n irregular fast-lane solemnizations of marriages. The preventive suspension was lifted on Dec.14, 2007. /Correspodnent Hayde Quiñanola