Regina Magundayao Valdez's financial motivation in the case of the illegally abducted minors has always been clear. What's unsettling, however, is the mother's coldness and ambition: Regina used the fact that she had the children with her in the Philippines to force an advantageous divorce settlement. She explicitly stated that if her demands weren't met, the children would never return to their home in Spain.
Chronology of an Economic Blackmail
In July 2024, while the family was on vacation in the Philippines, Regina proposed that she would have the children for the month of August and her husband for September. This way, they would exercise shared custody during the initial months while preparing the divorce agreement. This seemed reasonable since the minors were scheduled to return to Barcelona on September 3rd.
Regina asked her husband to find a lawyer to draft a shared custody agreement, which was submitted on August 5th. Ten days later, on August 15th, Regina announced that she would not sign that agreement. Six days after that, on August 21st, Regina responded with an alternative agreement where she would have sole custody of the children, the father would have no visitation rights, and in addition to extraordinary expenses, she was to receive €1,900 each month. In total, this amounted to an average of more than €2,000 per month. Regina's plan is, enjoy a comfortable financial position in the Philippines, not to work for 10 years and completely eliminate the father's role from the children's lives.
An Unbearable Bargaining
The second half of August was intense and painful for the family. Despite numerous messages sent by Gerard and Laia's sisters, Regina consistently made increasingly forced excuses for not returning to Spain. Sometimes she would say the children wouldn't adapt well, other times that she needed a lot of money to live there, other times that she would come at the end of October… And whenever reasonable offers were made, she would change the subject.
As September 3rd, the date of the children's return flight approached, things escalated. Regina announced that Gerard and Laia would not take the return flight. She was clearly informed that this was unacceptable and would have criminal consequences. She simply laughed. She didn't even allow the father to say goodbye to the children, using bad weather as an excuse.
Laura Rodríguez Caro, the family's spokesperson, points to Regina's bad faith, evidenced by the fact that she never explicitly discussed her proposed agreement (the one she demanded for the children's return). She knew it was outlandish and would engage in completely divergent dialogues with the father and sisters, introducing new topics every time she was asked to be clear or offered solutions. "It's obvious that she herself," Rodríguez Caro notes, "was ashamed to say, “give me €2,000 or you'll never see your siblings.” For this reason, she always dodged the topic and brought up minor issues, small expenses, and irrelevant details (like public transport tickets) to complicate the discussion.
Gerard and Laia Are Not Merchandise
When the abduction was performed, upon his return to Spain, the father began the arduous journey of resolving a matter as complicated as an international child abduction. The Ministry of the Presidency, Justice, and Relations with the Parliament informed the father that he was indeed embroiled in this type of situation and explained the legal consequences.
At this point, a "lawyer" in Spain appeared and negotiated on Regina's behalf, with the family's lawyer. Suddenly, Regina claimed she could reduce the monthly amount to €1,750, with no justification for the change. The mother was behaving as if it were a mere commercial transaction, testing offers. For Regina, Gerard and Laia were like a motorcycle she wanted to sell, or a dress bought in a second-hand market: something someone else wanted and from which she could profit. For this abducting mother, it was natural to haggle over her children. This appalled the family, but at least the mother's intention was absolutely clear: to enter into a bargaining process.
"The family immediately communicated that they would not enter into negotiations under these terms," notes Rodríguez Caro, "out of dignity, something Regina Mangundayao Valdez seems not to understand. Gerard and Laia are not merchandise."