I’ve been keeping up to date with the trial for Julia Campbell’s murderer in the Philippines. Apparently Juan Duntugan’s lawyer was fined P100 for skipping the hearing. Not only that, but the man who originally confessed to her murder, Juan Duntugan, now pleads not guilty. Part of me would like to move on from the whole event, but I had an encounter during the last few weeks of my time in Banaue that has haunted me since. I didn’t feel safe writing about while in the country, and I’m not quite sure what to do with it now.

Duntugan’s original story didn’t make any sense. He claimed that he was hiking along one of Batad’s narrow trails and Julia “bumped” into him from behind. He says that he thought Julia was a long-standing enemy of his and, infuriated, he turned around and began to beat Julia and didn’t realize it was a white American woman until it was too late.

Unless Duntugan was under the influence of completely mind-altering drugs, than what he says doesn’t make sense. Julia was a 5’7, Caucasian blonde. Most Ifugao men are significantly shorter than that. As a 5’7 woman myself, I usually towered over the locals, especially in Batad which is about an hour-long bumpy ride from Banaue, but far more rural and un-developed. Juan’s enemy would have been a man most likely under 5’5, with very dark skin and black hair. How could anyone turn around and bludgeon someone to death without noticing that difference? It makes no sense.

Sometime shortly after Julia’s death, I was hanging out with Adam—my neighbor in Banaue and a Peace Corps Volunteer—down in Manila. He looked at his cell phone after receiving a text and gave me a strange look.

“I just got a weird message from Johnny,” he said. Johnny was a man we knew back in Banaue. “He says that he knows the real story behind what happened to Julia. He says that the Duntugan has been lying to the media. He says when I get back to Banaue, he’ll tell me.”

We both thought the message was a bit strange, but figured Johnny had heard some gossip and wanted to pass it on—a common occurrence in our region. The Peace Corps had warned Adam not to trust the escalating levels of gossip about the murder, so we didn’t think much more of it. Adam would never see Johnny again after Julia’s murder, because for safety reasons, the Peace Corps wouldn’t allow him more than a one-day excursion to pack his things and leave the region. When I returned there some time later, I only stayed for a few days here and there in between other travels. I didn’t think I’d see Johnny again.

Well, my last week in Banaue, I walked around the town to say goodbye to the people I knew. After I walked through the local market I ran into Johnny, whose wife sold produce at a stall. I sat down on the concrete next to him while he sorted through a large bag of potatoes.

Never one for small talk, Johnny asked me why Adam hadn’t returned to Banaue. I explained that the Peace Corps had kept him away for safety reasons. He scratched his chin and shook his head. “What happened to that girl…it is bad. I had a feeling he might not come back because of it.” He turned and leaned toward me, “You know, I told Adam that I knew the real story about what happened to Julia. I talked to Duntugan’s father a little while ago. He is a relative of mine. Duntugan went and stayed with his father at one point while he was hiding, until his father made him turn himself in. His father and I were talking the other day and he told me that Juan isn’t telling the truth.”

My interest piqued, so I figured I’d stay and listen to what Johnny had to say. This is the “real” story that Johnny proceeded to tell:

Juan and his wife own the small restaurant (canteen) where Julia was last seen drinking a coke. Juan had gone into Banaue either on the day before Easter or Easter Sunday (Johnny didn’t say) to buy supplies for their restaurant. Instead he’d gotten drunk and gambled all their money away. When he came home to tell his wife what he’d done, she got so angry that she began to yell and scream at him. In all Filipino culture, but especially in Ifugao, men really do not like to “lose face.” So, Juan tried to think of ways to shut her up. He told his father that he thought if he hit the American woman with something that it would shut his wife up. So he did. And once he did it, his anger for his wife and the situation took over that he ended up beating Julia to death. Johnny didn’t mention it, but knowing that alcoholism is rampant in Ifugao, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was drunk and or under the influence of drugs when it happened.

I didn’t know what to say or do with the information. It could have just been a rumor, but Johnny didn’t seem like the type. The story certainly made more sense and fit with what I’d seen before in some Ifugao men (the drinking, gambling, and irresponsibility). But, gossip, or chica-chica as they call it there, is a huge part of Philippine culture.

Why was it important? Because it would have been premeditated murder. That would have changed the charges—possibly to a death sentence. I wondered if while he hid for those couple weeks he tried to come up with a story that would make him less guilty somehow.

I also didn’t know what to do as far as safety went. I didn’t want to put my friend in danger (with local, vengeful Ifugaos) by telling the authorities what he’d said, and I didn’t want to put myself in danger either. I had a plane ticket to go home in a week and I didn’t want anything to stop that—especially not the corrupt and convoluted justice system of the Philippines. I ended up telling Adam to tell the Peace Corps office, which he did. I don’t think, however, that they ever took it seriously.

What was even more uncomfortable was that though Johnny agreed that what Dontugan did was despicable, he also shook his head and said this: “You know, this should be a lesson to (Duntugan’s) wife. Women shouldn’t talk to their husbands like that. They need to respect them. He could have been so angry that he killed her, or he could have jumped off a cliff. She is lucky that he didn’t do that.”

I got so angry that I couldn’t speak. I didn’t even know what to say. I wish I’d yelled at him—I wish I’d told him that it’s that kind of thinking that allowed Julia’s murder to happen. But I just shut my mouth, said goodbye, and walked away. I knew I wouldn’t change his mindset and I didn’t want to talk to him anymore. I didn’t want to be there anymore. It disturbed me so much because I thought it was an isolated incident, with one crazy man. But if more than one man felt like this, if this was the underlying belief about women, couldn’t something like this happen again?

It wasn’t that there weren’t good men out there, but it was precisely that kind of sentiment that had killed Julia. The notion that women are indispensable. That woman are subservient and should respect their husbands no matter what they do. I did speak with other men that were disgusted by Duntugan’s actions—men who said that Ifugao culture highly respected women and it was a great crime to ever hurt a woman. But comments like Johnny’s are always the ones who haunt us, aren’t they?

It’s one of the great conflicts we deal with when we encounter shifting indigenous cultures—we so desperately want them to stay the same, a remnant of our past, or evolve, but only if they’re going to be just like us.