Insight: April 16

This week on Insight, Kumi Taguchi takes a deep dive into relationships of convenience. Can they really work?

Lutgarda Porciuncula Espiritu, or Lee, was experiencing a difficult time when she saw a newspaper ad from an Australia man seeking a Filipina penpal. She replied on a whim and it changed the course of her life.

“Our decision to get married was a mutually beneficial one for my husband and I, and with time our love grew,” she tells Insight.

“I came across him by chance one day in 1986, as I was reading an English-language newspaper in my hometown, Manila.

“There was an ad that read: ‘An Australian man who wants to meet a Filipina lady for friendship’.

“At the time, I had an underlying sense that my life was approaching a major crossroads.

“I had completed a journalism degree in Manila and was working as a high school teacher. But the previous few years had been hard.

“The Philippines was in political turmoil, which spurred the beginning of the massive exodus of Filipinos seeking work opportunities and greater freedoms abroad.

“And my family had experienced a tragedy five years earlier, when a house fire caused us to lose my father at the age of 43 and our home. To make things worse, we had no insurance.

“I was soul-searching and I was curious. So I decided to respond to the ad.”

8:30pm tonight on SBS.