Journey’s globe-trotting frontman Arnel Pineda is dodging a bailable arrest order after repeatedly ghosting court hearings on a domestic violence charge filed by his wife.
Judge Mary Ann Punzalan-Toribio of QC Regional Trial Court Branch 99 unleashed a bench warrant on Sept. 10 when Pineda skipped his scheduled arraignment.
A sheriff went hunting for the singer on Sept. 12 but came up empty. Bail is pegged at ₱72,000, yet the judge yanked his earlier cash bond and handed it to the government.
The case, anchored on Section 5(i) of the Anti-Violence Against Women and Their Children Act, accuses the rock star of years of verbal abuse, humiliation, and financial control that allegedly drove his wife out of their home.
Court files trace the couple’s rocky past back to 2003, when Pineda’s then-girlfriend allegedly caught him womanizing. They tied the knot in 2008, a year after Journey guitarist Neal Schon famously discovered Pineda on YouTube and catapulted him to worldwide fame.
Despite fame, fortune, the marriage allegedly drowned in repeated infidelities and public spats. His wife says she endured ridicule while managing businesses built from his earnings for the sake of their two kids.
Pineda fired back with an adultery complaint she flatly denies, while his camp insists the domestic-abuse charge is payback with flimsy evidence.
The court has reset the arraignment to Sept. 17—bench warrant still locked and loaded if the Pinoy rock hero is a no-show again.
