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MORE and
more married Filipino couples are falling out of love.
This pre-Valentine damper is based on
data from the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) that
show an increase in the number of filings for annulment,
legal separation and nullity cases.
Last year, a total 7,753 cases were
filed and out of this number, 2,582 cases were lodged in
Metro Manila.
Two years ago, the OSG said it had
recorded 7,138 cases filed by married individuals
seeking separation from their partners. The number is 19
percent higher compared to the number of cases filed in
2005.
In 2004 there were 6,335 separation
cases filed, 6,848 in 2003, 5,250 in 2002, and 4,520 in
2001.
Under the Family Code, non-Muslim
Filipinos have three options to change marriage
status—legal separation, declaration of nullity and
annulment.
Annulment applies to a marriage that is
considered valid, but there are grounds to declare it
void such as lack of parental consent, insanity, fraud,
force, intimidation or undue influence, impotence and
sexually transmitted disease.
A “declaration of nullity” of marriage, on
the other hand, applies to marriages that are void or
invalid from the very beginning. Among the grounds for
nullity of marriage are minority, lack of authority of
solemnizing officers, absence of marriage license,
bigamous or polygamous marriages, mistaken identity,
incestuous marriages, void by reason of public policy,
and psychological incapacity.
On the other hand, in legal separation,
spouses are still considered married to each other, and,
thus, are not allowed to remarry. The grounds for
seeking legal separation include repeated physical
violence inflicted by one spouse against the other or
against a child, destructive addiction or behavior, and
abandonment by a spouse without justifiable reason for
more than one year.
“We are disturbed with the surge in the
number of annulment of marriage filed… We call on the
Church to do something about this,” said Solicitor
General Agnes Devanadera.
She noted the usual ground being cited
by those seeking to declare their marriage void is
psychological incapacity.
Under the Family Code, psychological
incapacity contemplates downright incapacity or
inability to take cognizance of and to assume the basic
marital obligations.
Article 36 of the Family Code states
that psychological incapacity must be medically or
clinically identified to be considered as a valid
ground. It added the incapacity must be proven to be
existing at “the time of the celebration” of the
marriage.
Devanadera had noticed the
“psychological incapacity” ground is frequently being
used as an excuse by either of the party to find a new
partner.
A total of 805 petitions were filed last
year seeking a court declaration of presumptive death of
a spouse.
The basis for such filings is Article 41
of the Family Code, which states a marriage contracted
by any person during subsistence of a previous marriage
shall be null and void, unless before the celebration of
the subsequent marriage, the prior spouse had been
absent for four consecutive years and the spouse present
has a well-founded belief that the absent spouse was
already dead. |
