Original subtitles

How can it be a crime to fall in love?

Imagine, 14 years, sitting in the jail.

What about my baby?

Not my missus and not my unborn child, no way.

I was pushing and pushing.

I said, save yourself.

I wasn't tempted for a second to leave her.

I can see the gun pointing on us.

They will not stop until one of us dead

I

was

36 years old

I was working as a machine operator.

I had a few relationships in the past, nothing serious.

But your heart's always open and you're always looking for someone, even if you

think you ain't, you always are.

At the time, my dad was diagnosed with cancer.

I was just surfing the internet to see what information I could find out about

it.

It was pure coincidence that I came across a site where I noticed this

woman. Just thought I had to talk to her.

Hello?

His camera popped up and he's waving, and then he's saying hi. He was, like,

doing like that.

I said, all right, why not try and talk to him?

I'm Cynthia from the 14th.

Cynthia told me she was working in Abu Dhabi.

She's got two kids.

She's so big now.

She's separated from her husband.

You can see how upset he was for her.

My ex always treated me bad.

Violent is always there.

He kicked me out.

He said to me that I want to get rid of you.

I want you out of my life.

It's really hard for me to leave the country, leaving my children behind.

Sounds like a nice man.

You can't get a divorce in the Philippines. It's a very Catholic

So she's trying to save up the money to get an annulment, and it's a very, very

expensive process.

Then as time goes by, we keep on chatting.

I feel, like, special.

I know he's a nice person.

One day, Cynthia said that she's going back to the Philippines for a holiday.

I said to her, hang on.

I'm going to meet you there.

My friends thought I was crazy, but I could spend a lifetime regretting it if

don't do this.

I had no idea of the nightmare that was yet to come.

I was very nervous when I arrived at Manila airport.

I'm well aware of what people think about a Western man meeting a Filipino

the internet.

Mail order brides, it's all sleazy. But I thought she could be the one, and my

feelings for her were real.

I spotted Cynthia, and, oh, she's stunning.

It's quite tall.

I was, like, looking at it like that. Like, my neck's quite hurt.

I remember saying to her, the camera don't do you justice.

You're definitely more beautiful.

I'm very, very happy, of course, and excited.

He's here.

His intention is really genuine.

I can feel that he's man of my life.

I had an amazing time.

Definitely fell in love with Cynthia and everything about her.

The family, the country.

You couldn't help but feel it.

It's a really, really nice feeling knowing that there is still a man who

accept who I am.

I felt so much beautiful that time.

It would be different if she was still with her husband.

But I know they were long split up by the time I came on the scene.

In my eyes, Cynthia was single, so she was quite capable of dating whoever she

wanted.

One day, my mum phoned me up and said to me, look, your dad's not too good at

the moment.

You've got to get back home right now.

It was two and a half days after I got back, but he passed away.

That's horrible to see.

But I'm glad I did get to speak to my dad, and I wouldn't give up that time

anything.

About a week later, I went online, as usual, to speak to Cynthia.

Hey. And she was crying.

And I said, well, what's the matter, what's the matter? And she said...

And I couldn't understand why she was crying. I said, that's great news.

That's the best news I've had all year.

I said, but that's not our plan.

I told him I was crying and he was like, I'm over the moon.

And I was really happy. I've met the woman I want to be with and she's

I plan to save up as much money as I could and be with her as soon as

I am happy, but if my ex -husband finds out I am pregnant,

it will be a big problem.

I know he's jealous.

One day I went to the clinic to have a checkup for my baby.

I can feel that there is someone behind me.

I just take no notice because why would I think that someone's following me?

But then I start worrying.

Then I called my friend who's working in the clinic.

My friend said, when you get there, don't go

through the entrance.

Go at the back.

And then I will meet you there.

When I had my checkup, my friend gave me a call.

She told me that, Cynthia, there is one man here asking about you.

I think he's a detective.

I said, what did you tell him?

She said, we cannot give any information about you.

But I think... That man find out that I was seeing a gynaecologist and I was

wearing baggy dress.

So I think they have a hint.

I was really scared because I know that behind of this is my ex -husband.

Because who else will do it?

I was scared for your safety.

So a couple of days later, I flew back out to the Philippines.

It's my job to protect it.

Even though at the time, I didn't realize that I was going to get slightly

of my depth.

We are in the Catholic country.

People will see that I'm with him.

It's really an issue for them because I'm still legally married.

A few weeks later, Cynthia Solista sent us a letter.

They said that my ex -husband is filing a adultery charge against me.

Adultery?

They found pictures of me on Facebook.

Adultery in the Philippines is a serious charge.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God, David.

My solicitor said that if I'm proven guilty, it could be imprisonment for me.

course, I was... I was just crying. I was burst into tears because... They can

see, they have evidence that, OK, I'm pregnant.

We knew he's got himself a girlfriend, so how could he file charges against us?

It's double standard.

And on the letter it said that if we can pay him $10 ,000, he'd drop the

charges.

She thinks I'm a rich foreigner, that I ain't.

Even if I had the money, there's no way I'd give in to this kind of blackmail.

We tried to forget the problem for a while because it's holiday season.

We're chatting.

And then I heard a noise.

Someone's calling me Cynthia, Cynthia.

My heart drummed.

That's it. How could that be?

Why is there someone calling my name?

I went to look out the window. I said, no, no, no, I'll look.

And then he said, Cynthia, there's loads of people outside.

You could see loads of police cars.

This was very disturbing and very scary.

They're all armed to the teeth. They've all got their big machine guns.

And I thought, this is serious overkill.

You could hear her dad trying to talk to them downstairs, getting upset.

I said, I cannot take this anymore because my dad is the one dealing with

It should be me.

We went downstairs.

Police come bursting in the door.

I said, my goodness, this is the moment I'm scared of.

My heart palpitated.

I was like, oh, my God, this is the scariest thing.

I couldn't take my eyes off of the guns that were there.

And then some bloke comes, bowing for the door, shouting to everybody and

dictating like he's a police officer.

Then it dawned on me, this is her ex -husband.

He was really angry.

She's the one. She's pregnant. It's not even mine.

He was shouting that I am adultery.

I'm a slut.

And then they showed a warrant for us, and then they said, we have to arrest

for adultery.

I thought, this is unreal, this is crazy.

And he's telling the police, put handcuffs on her, put handcuffs on me.

They said, why are you putting this? I'm not going to escape. Do you think I am

a criminal? Because of what? Falling in love with David?

I said, I can't accept that.

As we were led off, Cynthia's dad stuffed the money in my pocket.

But I didn't really figure out what he meant at the time.

When I eventually went out the door, I saw there's plenty of people.

Everybody started taking pictures of her.

You think this is crazy.

I'm not burying my head. Anything I've done wrong is falling in love with a

woman and we're having a baby together, and I'm proud of that.

Then I noticed Cynthia's kids there as well.

And then I saw them.

I just can't believe it because why even the children?

This looks like someone just ripped her heart out.

And it was horrible to see.

What kind of man would do this?

Not only to his ex -missus, to the kids.

He will do the best he can to hurt me.

He can do everything, but don't hurt my children.

It seemed like the drive went on forever.

It did worry me, the fact that Cynthia's ex -husband seemed to have control over

the police.

When you've got that sort of game, law seems to go out the window.

That was the scariest thing. How could you fight for justice when these people

are corrupt?

I'm just really upset at that time.

David is a visitor in that country.

I have to protect him.

But in what way?

We walked into the police station.

It's a little dirty room.

I asked the policeman, am I going to stay in the jail?

I said, just tell me so that I can prepare myself.

I said, look, just take me, let Cynthia go.

She's pregnant with my child. I'll take full responsibility.

Let her go.

David!

Unfortunately, in the Philippines, it don't work out that way.

You had murderers, rapists, child molesters.

My goodness, I don't want to mix with these people.

I don't... I said, I don't... Please do something.

Please do something.

I'm trying to talk to this police, look, don't lock her up, she's pregnant.

Then it clicked to me, why didn't his dad give me so much money? Without even

thinking, I just handed him over a thousand pesos.

I was disgusted with that, that they put a pregnant woman through that just to

make a bit of money.

They put us in the separate cell, but it's just beside the cell, crowded with

criminals.

That cell is too small. You cannot even stretch your leg.

I can see also rats running around. I said, I see a rat in the jail.

I said, my goodness, really, really, it's a very dirty place.

It was definitely a total nightmare.

Oh, my God, what if I get sentenced?

What about my baby?

What will happen to my baby?

About an hour passed, and so the police officer said, look, come with us.

He took me on the side, and there was an unmarked police car there.

I thought, what's he bringing me round here for?

See this?

There's bullet holes all over this car.

And you see red, fleshy things stuck to it. I didn't know what it was at the

time. I just thought, is it an animal or something?

And he said, look, we arrested someone.

The chimneys.

Took him on the side here and shot him in the head.

Why is the police officer telling me that he's just murdered someone?

I just wanted to go back in. He made me feel physically sick and scared.

I can make a problem go away.

He said, boy, take care of her ex so you've got no more problems.

Just $400.

You think, am I really hearing what this bloke's offering me here?

I was shell -shocked. I didn't know what to say to him.

As much as I hate her ex, I didn't want this bloke dead.

I said to him, nah, don't come to that, mate.

There's no one in this world I'd ever accept that, not in this lifetime.

Human life don't mean nothing to these people, and that was the most scariest

thing of all.

Eventually, they let me phone the embassy, and they sent out a

I expected so much for this bloke. He was my saviour, basically.

He was the one who was going to tell us what to do.

He said that I cannot do anything about it.

And she is pregnant, so that was the evidence why they have this adultery

He's definitely thought we were in the wrong.

He's going to ask just the way it works here.

We actually said to us that we're looking at seven to 14 years in prison.

What?

That was unbelievable.

I'm sorry.

Imagine 14 years sitting in the jail.

It was New Year's Eve, so you could hear all the celebrations outside.

It was just a horrible situation.

And then I get a pain in my stomach, maybe because of stress.

I was worried about losing the baby or start bleeding or any of the other

million things that can go wrong with a pregnant woman.

You could tell on her face that she was upset and hurt and in pain.

David is trying to tell me that everything will be fine.

I'm thinking all these things happen, how can you say everything will be fine?

Finally, after four days, they informed us that we're going to go see a judge.

Thank God for that. We're going to go see a bit of someone in a bit of

and we can sort this mess out a little bit.

And when we got down to the courthouse, we met the solicitor and all the

solicitors to me.

David, they've arrested you under the wrong name. Their warrant is invalid.

I couldn't believe it that they've arrested me under the wrong name.

You need to come with me. We need to post bail.

I went out of the car park at the back of the court and waited for Cynthia.

I was worried about her being left in the courtroom on her own, not knowing if

she's going to walk out there or not.

We went to the judge. We paid the bail then for a temporary release.

As soon as she turned up, she could see she'd been crying.

She said, we're looking at going to trial.

This list is saying to me, it's just a matter of time before they get an arrest

warrant for you.

The only thing you can do is leave this country now.

I think she said, I don't want anything to happen to you.

I was pushing him, pushing him. I said, go back to England.

Save yourself.

They will not stop.

I wasn't tempted for a second to leave her.

Not for a second.

For me, it's a very, very, very nice feeling, knowing the fact that we are in

that situation.

That I'm not on my own.

Because, yeah, you have a choice. You can go.

But he prepared to stay.

I just want to forget everything, but... He proves how he loves me so

much.

We're warned about the ex -husband.

Cynthia's family actually said to us that this bloke is pretty dangerous.

He is really desperate to catch me.

Maybe he wants to kill me also.

We decided to go back to her cousin's house and hide out there.

We've got a gated community.

It would be safe there.

When I first got there, he said to me, you've got nothing to worry about,

be well protected here.

I thought, that's nice, but I don't know what you're on about. And then he said

to me, look, come with us.

He said, lad, I've got a few things to show you.

And I thought, why is he showing me this?

I think that's the first time David has seen a gun, and it's quite shocking.

It's common in the Philippines to keep at least one gun in the house.

There's a lot of bad people.

Then he brought out a magnum, showed me how to load it.

Hold it.

But don't pull the trigger.

Come on, follow me.

Then he said to me, come in your room. He pulled out a little drawer, there's

two handguns in there.

Then he brought out an M16, showed me how to load that.

He said to me, look, you're well protected here.

And you think, oh, my God, what am I going to do, enter a war zone?

OK, yeah.

OK, yeah. I was definitely losing my moral compass there.

Yeah. And what goes through your mind is, I don't know if I can actually hold

gun, point it at someone and squeeze the trigger.

But then you're thinking that that gun is the only thing that's going to

you and your family if push comes to the shove.

Who knows?

It really does get to you day after day, staying in, and you find you get more

and more paranoid.

Any car, you run to the window, see who it is.

It definitely felt like I was losing my grasp of morality.

It was crazy.

It was like being locked up.

We're just inside the house.

I feel a bit secured, but still, we cannot do anything that we want.

One day we had to go and see the solicitor.

He agreed to give us a lift back home.

Now we're driving along.

We're all talking about the case.

This lift there, I said, look, I think we're being followed.

There's a black car behind us.

Maybe that's my ex's instruction to follow us.

And he said, look, I'm going to go around the block.

He went down a couple of little side streets.

And it followed her.

Now this is trouble.

We're gonna have to get onto an open road somewhere we can try and lose it

were swimming in and out of the cars They

were literally right behind us

I don't know what they were trying to do to us, but I didn't want to stay around

to find out

Then I saw that the window's a bit down.

I can see the gun pointing on us.

The solicitor says, get down now.

I lift my head like that.

I can't believe that it's happening.

They are ready to kill us.

My life's in jeopardy.

simply as life's in jeopardy.

My heart beats so fast. I'm just praying that we survive.

It's crazy.

We're racing through the streets, people getting on with their daily lives, and

you've got two cars, one shooting at another.

Watch out!

So we managed to raise off.

There was enough distance between us and the solicitor said, you guys jump out

and keep your head down.

And our camera went going, so they followed me.

They slammed on the anchorage.

You can now jump out.

I started helping Cynthia out.

It seemed to take forever.

We need to run until we will not see the highway.

And then we heard the sound of the car.

I really feel scared.

My tummy is really painful because we run so fast.

Until the point I asked David, can we stop?

Or else I'm going to die.

Because I can feel I'm so exhausted.

So we just kept down.

Keep looking at it, see if they make a move or anything.

I'm sweating.

I'm scared.

If they would have jumped out of the car, I don't know what we would have

They will not stop until one of us is dead.

It started to get dark.

We didn't want to run around because we weren't sure if they'd come back.

We headed off into the banana plantation.

They've got big trees.

You've got massive leaves to it and spiders.

I'm trying to put that back in my mind because I'm petrified of spiders.

I said, are we going to stay here for the night?

David said, we don't have choice.

I'm not used to the country, I don't know what the sound of any of their

make.

There's wild dogs around and the place is full of rabies, so you have to be

careful there.

You didn't really sleep, you were on edge, every little noise, you'd turn

around, what's that, what's that?

It's one of the longest nights of my life.

Having a man like him, it's quite a big relief because he never

leaves me behind.

He's always there for me.

At the end of the day, I knew me and Cynthia still had each other, so no

what they did, we'll always be together.

A week later, my baby daughter was born, a nice, healthy baby girl we named

Janina. I was getting choked up and, you know, thinking, oh, this is the best

day of my life. I kept looking into her eyes, thinking, this is my daughter.

I'll always be there for you.

You're my new reason for being on this earth.

When we saw Janina, we forget about the problem.

We just concentrate on her because she's the one we're fighting for.

After the birth, we made appointments to go and see the British Embassy and see

what they can do to help us.

I knew it wouldn't be straightforward to get back to Britain because it would be

jumping bail.

But I wanted them to recognise that my daughter was a British citizen.

So if it come to it, we could get her out of the country.

Good morning, sir. Good morning, ma 'am. It felt good because it was the first

English voices I've heard in months.

As soon as you step through the door, you think, now I'm in British soil.

It was the same gentleman I see in the cells.

I thought, oh, please.

When I was in the cells, he was no use whatsoever.

And he had a really serious look on his face and you saw him, you thought, here

we go, this is it now, what's he going to say?

And he said, I couldn't get a visa for Janina to go anywhere under Filipino

I said, well, I'll take a DNA test.

I'll do whatever you want.

He said, it don't matter if she is your daughter, even by blood.

They don't recognise her. She legally belongs to her ex -husband.

And it's up to him.

What do you want to do with that baby?

I'm not giving her up.

It's not right. David is the father.

And then suddenly we have this law that he cannot claim his child.

I was gobsmacked.

It was like someone kicking me in the head.

Over my dead body, would he take my daughter away from me?

Janina.

Hello, baby.

At this point in time, it's looking pretty dismal.

Cynthia and herself are looking at 14 years in prison for adultery, and I've

been told I've got no legal rights to my own daughter.

We are more determined to fight when we have Janina because we don't want to

lose Janina.

She's our life.

We heard from a few of our sources that Cynthia's sex husband was trying to take

Janina off her just so he can put her in an orphanage for spite.

I've got to protect my daughter. I want to get my daughter and my partner home.

At this point, we had nowhere to turn, nowhere to go, and nowhere to help us.

Then I remembered the English reporter in Thailand.

So I dug out his number.

It's David, the English bloke from the Philippines.

I said, look, I've got nowhere else to turn to. Can you please help me?

And he said to me, look, we'll fly out tomorrow and we'll see what we can do.

We arranged to meet him at his hotel.

We left the house around midnight.

That no one can see us.

I was paranoid about being followed.

So we got a jeep me.

We attacked the subway train.

There's no way they could have followed us.

It was a nice hotel.

We walked to the bar.

And I introduced myself.

I felt pretty quick that we could trust him.

I don't know how you can help us, though.

Run out of options.

Well, very honestly, you need to leave.

And then he came up with the idea. He said, look, if we can get you guys out

the Philippines to Thailand, you're welcome to come and stay at my house.

He can help us sort out Cynthia and Janina's visa, and we can just

on getting them back to England.

It's really hard for us to go on the run if we have Janina.

It was a very risky plan.

I knew I had a warrant out for my arrest by that time.

Cynthia had a charge impending.

Now she was going to be a fugitive that made it even worse.

But at the time, we thought we had no choice.

It's hard for me.

But when we get out from the Philippines, we're out of danger.

All we

needed before we

could get out of the country was Janina's birth certificate and Filipino

passport.

I explained to David that we have to bribe officials.

to sort out paperwork under the table.

We don't have choice.

It's very hard to swallow.

This goes against everything I believe in.

It cost us $10 ,000.

But I don't care if I had to dance with the devil himself.

As long as they got my daughter and Cynthia to safety.

Finally, we're ready to go.

Before we leave the country, David asked me, is this the thing you want to do?

It means you have to leave your children.

It's hard for me because I never get the chance to be with my family.

I feel really sad.

But I said, this is for the sake of our daughter.

We set off to the airport.

We were both kind of nervous, quiet.

Cynthia's position, if she got caught, she'd be a fugitive of law.

She'd be taken to prison.

because she would be jumping bail.

That was the scariest thing.

Of course, we're still worried they will stop us if they recognize who we are.

I was really scared.

I was looking around.

Every time I saw police, I was thinking they will arrest me.

Or David.

It was extremely worrying trying to get out of there.

You try and keep your head down, you try not to give them any eye contact.

You just look the other way.

You're trying to act.

Like you're just a tourist leaving the country.

You're thinking, please don't anybody look at me, don't recognise me.

We checked in, no problem there, the woman was nice and helpful.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Then we were in the queue for customs.

And you're thinking, oh, God, this is it, this is it, do or die.

I told Cynthia, no matter what happens, once we go through customs, you carry on

walking.

I was really nervous because I know Janina's passport, how she get the

is not legit.

Morning.

When they check my paperwork, my heart is all over the place because I can't, I

don't know, maybe they will stop me because I'm guilty, of course.

They check it, they check it.

Luckily, they didn't question, so it's such a relief for me. I said, my

goodness, just one door, one step, and we're departing.

I thought, thank God, she's through.

I put my passport on the counter.

We had a look at it.

And he seems to be looking at it for a while.

And I'm just sitting there staring and waiting for him to commit it back.

You try and convince yourself, oh, it's nothing, it's nothing, it's nothing.

You know what I mean? Or else you fall apart and then notice something's wrong.

Then he showed it to someone else.

I've got to try and play it cool.

Even though in the back of your mind thinking, oh no, everything's going

now.

And he said to me, wait here for a while, please.

Then he walked off.

And I thought, this is it. I'm going to prison. He's got me. I can say goodbye

to Janine now.

And I was trying not to get choked up.

You're trying to, you think yourself at the back of your head, it ain't that, it

can't be that.

The thought of not seeing her grow up would destroy me.

When the time that David was stopped, I was like, oh my God, this is it now.

We're caught. We're not going anywhere.

I turn around and Cynthia's walking back towards me.

David told me to carry on walking.

I said, you're crazy, how can I carry on walking? You're still, you're part of

me, so I need to stop and see what's going on.

And she walked literally right up to me and I'm turning my head like I don't

know her.

And then she puts her arm around me, are you okay? I thought, oh, Cynthia, what

did I say about keep walking?

Then the official come back with a passport.

Then he said to me, you've got us trouble with your visa.

Turned out the problem was with me, where I spent all my time sorting out

Janina, I actually forgot to sort out my own, and my visa was two days out of

date.

They said to me, look, if you pay the excess, we'll let you go through.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Oh, yes.

Thank God that's all it was.

They called the plane, and I remember standing up, grabbing our stuff, and I

thought, if I'm out of my way, I'm going to run to them doors.

But we tried to walk as calmly as possible.

As we got to the gate, I remember I turned around, looking one last look,

thinking, I see all these nightmares behind us, the sigh of relief.

That's one chapter in my life that they were, and we're safe.

I give a hug to David and just all I can say is thank you to him.

Thank you because he didn't give up.

He honoured his word that he will be with me all through this battle.

Cynthia's the one who gave up more than me. She gave up her family, her kids.

There's not a day that goes past that she don't think of them two kids.

I hope one day I will be able to go back to the Philippines to see my children

and to explain why things happen like that.

I do feel lucky in my life. I know it's the things that have gone on, but

they've made us stronger than ever.

Just before Christmas, I had good news, finally, that my annulments were coming

through. So we can plan our wedding.

That's the most... And he can't wait to marry me. Of course, I can't wait to

marry him as well.

If I had to go through that again and again and again, I would. Cynthia is

definitely worth fighting for.

You meet a few people in this world worth fighting for, and you've got to

on to them. And that's exactly what I'm doing.