Adel and Rowena Tamano

He’s a Muslim. She’s a Christian. But despite their different religious orientations, Adel Tamano and Rowena Kapunan have made it big in the romance department and even enjoy a successful marriage.

The second to the youngest child of the late Senator Mamintal Tamano and civic leader Hadja Putri Zorayda Abbas, Adel had a normal childhood — walking to and from school, playing holen and habulan with other children in the neighborhood, and bonding with his siblings and cousins.

“(When I was young), I was conscious about it (being a Muslim) since we’re practicing Muslims. We don’t eat pork. We fast during the holy week of Ramadan. We tried to pray the five prayers. It’s the most basic thing. Birthday parties were a big thing for me. Children like to eat hotdogs and barbeques, and we couldn’t eat most of the handa and would just settle for ice cream and cake. Those things were the ones we usually asked ourselves. Why do we do that? And my parents would try to explain it in simple ways,” shares Adel.

He continued: “But growing up in a majority Christian environment, mas nabigyan ko ng halaga ‘yung religion ko kasi mas in your face’yun, as opposed to living in a Muslim community where everyone is not eating pork and you don’t feel different.”

Meanwhile, Rowena was the only girl in the family. She remembered being the “saling cat” because she would always follow her three older brothers and try to blend in with them. Eventually, she found friends in their subdivision and they would play around the neighborhood. “Simple childhood, but it seemed complete,” as how Rowena puts it.

If there’s one thing common to both of them, it was having a lineage of law practitioners. Adel’s paternal and maternal grandparents were judges, while his father and uncles were all lawyers. It was the same with Rowena. She is the daughter of Supreme Court Justice Santiago Kapunan.

For Rowena, it was about following the family tradition. There was no question about her becoming lawyer. It was as if it was the most natural thing to do.

At first, she decided to venture out and took up Journalism at the University of the Philippines-Diliman. During those times, there were little job opportunities for journalism graduates. One couldn’t find a journalistic job that paid well. So, her dad advised her to try law school which she followed and fell in love with.

As for Adel, no one among his older siblings took up law. Even Adel wanted to pursue a different career path. He wanted to be a writer. But even if Adel knew that his father would want his children to follow their own passions, the former spokesperson of the United Opposition (UNO) realized that his father was still somehow hoping that one of his children would follow in his footsteps.

Looking at his father that time, Adel realized that he had to shelve his desire to become a writer and pursue law. He first took up economics, followed by law proper at the Ateneo de Manila University where he graduated as Juris Doctor in 1996. He then proceeded to take up his master in public administration in UP, and later went to Harvard Law School.

Adel held the distinction as the first Filipino Muslim scholar at the Ivy League school where he undertook Islamic Legal Studies as a graduate program scholar. His stay in the university somehow opened his eyes and made him realize that “race, color, faith and ideology do not serve as divisions but rather as unifying factors for humankind to make this world a better place to live in.”

The couple first met during the Christmas party of the Castillo Law Firm, where Adel was working in, and Rowena was invited because she was set to enter the following year. They would become “batch mates.”

“She didn’t find me attractive,” Adel kiddingly teased Rowena when asked what was their first impression of each other, and to which she laughingly replied that “he’s my stalker.”

“When I was entering the law firm, my best friend Joy told me that Adel was cute and we would make a good couple. But then, everybody was saying he is a playboy. Kaya medyo, ilag ako,” shares Rowena. Adel laughingly butted in, saying, “Hindi talaga ako playboy noon. Marami lang talaga nagkakagusto at mapagbigay lang talaga ako.” But if truth be told, Adel thought Rowena looked like Cameron Diaz, and she has killer legs.

“It’s friendship more than anything else. We have common things. We like reading so we would go to bookstores. We like to eat. We would eat gigantic amounts of food and we didn’t get fat,” said Adel, adding that “that was what I like about Rowena when we were going out. Most of girls I went out with, they wouldn’t eat. But, Rowena, she likes to eat.”

Since they were working in one firm, they were thrown together all the time and would usually ride in a car pool. And during all those rides, traffic and all, romance eventually bloomed.

“I was conscious about him being a Muslim but not in the context that when he became my boyfriend, I would be marrying a Muslim. Not then. But when he became my boyfriend, it became muted,” shares Rowena.

After a year and a half, they broke up when Adel decided to live and work in Marawi. Adel, however, continued to visit Rowena every month. During one of his visits, he started talking about marriage, but Rowena just listened to his litany and didn’t care because, for her, they were no longer a couple. But Adel was persistent, and eventually Rowena said yes.

“Both our families had misgivings about the marriage. His family wanted him to marry a Muslim girl. My family was hesitant because I was the only girl and I was their baby. Adel told me right off the bat that there were things to talk about like even if our families wouldn’t support us, we would do it and fight for it, and about children and how we would raise them,” says Rowena.

So, on January 2, 1999, the couple got married. They had both the Christian and Muslim wedding rites.

Interfaith marriage has its own stumbling blocks, but the couple believes that the failure of the marriage is not because of the religious differences but rather, due to the inability of the couple to handle their faith differences. Surely, Adel and Rowena face it the best way they know— head on, straight forward, and no-nonsense.

On having different religions

He said: We don’t have high-level theological discussion about religion, about the nature of Christ or is it really God or man. It’s implicit that we respect each other’s religion. It’s about the mundane stuff, like the fasting. Sometimes, we have to pray the certain way that we pray. The pork, she doesn’t get to eat pork when we’re together.

She said: One time, after my meeting, I was so hungry that I was bitching about it. So, Adel brought me to a restaurant and ordered a clubhouse sandwich. I was complaining the whole time. And when the food arrived, I offered some to him and he said he was fasting. So, I was dumbfounded. Here he was, he hasn’t eaten the whole day, and I just skipped lunch for two hours and I was already complaining. It was things like that that would creep up into your daily life. It’s not about differences in taste. It is the mundane things that hit you the hardest.

On conversion

He said: There’s no compulsion in the Islamic religion. We can’t compel to change their belief. My relatives are always asking me if Rowena or I converted, but I tell them it was very un-Islamic.  What I hope is that by showing my faith through my life, she would think about converting. But if she doesn’t, that is fine with me.

She said: We talked about it before we got married. He said that to me one time that nothing would make him happy than that. Of course, he hopes that I would convert but it’s not as if he would force me to. Sometimes, I would say that I would love for him to be baptized, but I already know it won’t happen.

On raising Santi, 7, and Mike, 4

He said: Rowena is a little stern with the kids. I try not to raise my voice with my kids.  Although sometimes I contemplate if that’s effective because they would enter a world where there will be shouting, there will be people like that so maybe they couldn’t cope up. I encourage them. I believe in giving encouragement and reinforcements rather than challenging them.

She said: The rule in this house is no shouting. One of our kids is so malikot and sometimes he won’t obey. But it’s just playful and child-appropriate kakulitan.