Conclusion
TODAY’S the right time for a law on absolute divorce. That’s the belief of Rep. Edcel C.
Lagman of Albay.
The 17th Congress is the right time for the enactment of a law on absolute divorce, as the Philippines is the only country in the world that has no law on absolute divorce, according to Lagman, the principal author of the reproductive-health law.
“It is because of the existence of failed marriages beyond redemption that all countries in the world, except the Philippines, have legislated the grant of divorce in varying liberality and stringency,” Lagman added. “In fact, it is said the advent of divorce is contemporaneous with the institution of marriage.”
Presently, Lagman said the grounds for legal separation and annulment of marriage provided for in the Family Code of the Philippines have been adopted as among the grounds for absolute divorce.
The law said the existing grounds for legal separation are marital abuse; sexual infidelity; attempt against the life of the other; abandonment; de facto separation; conviction for a crime when the sentence is more than six years; contracting a subsequent bigamous marriage; drug addiction or habitual alcoholism; and lesbianism or homosexuality.
Annulment grounds
THE current grounds for annulment of marriage are lack of parental consent, vitiated consent, impotency, insanity and affliction of sexually transmissible disease.
Under Article 36 of the Family Code, psychological incapacity is included as another ground for absolute divorce.
Lagman is proposing four additional grounds for absolute divorce: when either of the spouses secure a valid foreign divorce, canonical divorce, gender-reassignment surgery, and when irreconcilable differences or conflicts exist between the married couple. The differences, according to Lagman’s proposal, are beyond redemption, despite earnest and repeated efforts at reconciliation.
According to Lagman, the institution of absolute divorce is a pro-woman legislation. Traditionally, in a marriage relation, the husband is more ascendant than the wife, according to the lawmaker.
“It is the woman who is usually brutalized, and it is the man who philanders and gets away with it,” he said. “Under these foreboding and unequal circumstances, a wife needs an absolute divorce more than the husband.”
Lagman explained that in divorce proceedings, the wife as the innocent spouse needs a court-decreed alimony and support for the child or children under her custody. This includes corresponding fines and contempt of court for delinquency in providing financial support.
Women’s issue
ACCORDING to Lagman, absolute divorce is not only a woman’s issue, “it is a poor woman’s issue”.
“Poor women cannot afford the current exorbitant expense for legal separation or annulment of marriage.”
He added an absolute divorce is a merciful liberation of the hapless wife from a long-dead marriage.
“While the state continues to protect and preserve marriage as a social institution, it gives the opportunity to spouses in irremediably failed marriages to secure an absolute divorce decree under limited grounds and well-defined procedures to avoid abuse; save the children from the pain and stress of their parents’ marital clashes; and grant the divorced spouses the right to marry again for another chance to achieve marital bliss,” Lagman’s proposal read.
According to his proposal, the “State shall assure that the petition and proceedings for the grant of absolute divorce shall be inexpensive and affordable.”
“Upon application by the petitioner, the proper court may waive the payment of filing fees and other costs of litigation,” the proposal added.
According to Lagman, divorce has been an accepted custom of indigenous Filipinos.
“In precolonial times, a number of Philippine tribes practiced absolute divorce.”
Lagman cited these tribes as the Gaddang of Nueva Vizcaya; the Igorot and Sagada of the Cordilleras; and the Manobo, Bila-an and the Tagbanwa of Palawan.
Irreparable marriages
Party-list Reps. Emmi A. de Jesus and Arlene D. Brosas of Gabriela have also refiled a measure making divorce as a “rights-based” option, aside from legal separation and annulment.
De Jesus and Brosas said their House Bill 2380 was crafted in consultation with women lawyers, from studies and inputs of various women’s groups and actual accounts of spouses gathered by their group.
The bill repeals several provisions in Executive Order 209, or the Family Code of the Philippines.
“We refiled this bill, hoping that the State will recognize that there are irreparable marriages, and this will also cater to the rights of women who are vulnerable to abuse inside their marriages,” de Jesus said.
Brosas also said many couples from the marginalized sectors who have no access to the courts simply end up separating sans the benefit of legal processes.
This is the fifth time that Gabriela filed the divorce bill since it was first introduced in the
13th Congress.
The Divorce Advocates of the Philippines (DAP) and the Association of Divorce for Women Empowerment (ADWE) joined Gabriela in urging the approval of the divorce bill in the 17th Congress.
ADWE Secretary-General Asliah Limbona of the muslim community shared their support to the divorce bill, despite having their own divorce rule under the Code of Muslim Personal Laws of the Philippines.
House Bill 2380
THE law proposed by de Jesus and Brosas notes five grounds for divorce all of which are premised on the irreparable breakdown of the marriage and the total nonperformance of
marital obligations.
The bill said one of the following conditions must be met:
■ the petitioner has been separated de facto from his or her spouse for at least five years at the time of the filing of the petition and reconciliation is highly improbable;
■ the petitioner has been legally separated from the spouse for at least two years at the time of the filing and reconciliation is highly improbable;
■ when any of the grounds for legal separation has caused the irre-parable breakdown of the marriage;
■ when one or both spouses are psychologically incapacitated to comply with the essential marital obligations; and
■ when the spouses suffer from irreconcilable differences that have caused the irreparable breakdown of the marriage.
The proposed divorce bill takes into consideration the rudiments of the Filipino culture and the general sentiment of preserving the sanctity of Filipino marriages, which is why the measure provides that divorce is granted only when specific conditions are met, de
Jesus explained.
De Jesus and Brosas said the divorce bill is long overdue.
“It is high time that the State gave couples in abusive and irreparable marriages the option to divorce,” the lawmakers said in their proposed bill. “We hope that this time, both Houses of Congress will finally approve the divorce bill.”
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1 comment
There is a new proposed law on Dissolution of marriage based on “unhappiness” in the House of Representatives. Read a discussion on https://deborjalaw.com.
Follow this link to read the actual article: https://deborjalaw.com/1205-2annulment-divorce-and-dissolution-of-marriage-in-the-philippines/