The Absolute Divorce Bill was first filed in 2005 under the 13th Congress and subsequently refiled in the 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th Congress, and again refiled in this 18th Congress. The current House Committee on Population and Family Relations approved a bill instituting absolute divorce and dissolution of marriage in the Philippines.
Oppositors to the proposed bill (including Catholic and Christian leaders) lamented the lack of opportunity for a comprehensive deliberation which was supposed to be done in a scheduled committee hearing last week. Instead, the House Committee, chaired by Guimaras Rep. Ma. Lucille Nava, approved the measures in just one hearing. A technical working group (TWG) was tasked to consolidate House Bills 100 of Rep. Edcel C. Lagman, 838 of the Makabayan Block and 2263 of Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez. The proposed measures provide that the existing grounds in the Family Code for legal separation, declaration of nullity of marriage and annulment are now all grounds for absolute divorce: Thus:
(a) The grounds for legal separation under Article 55 of the Family Code of the Philippines, modified or amended, as follows:
(1) Physical violence or grossly abusive conduct directed against the petitioner, a common child, or a child of the petitioner;
(2) Physical violence or moral pressure to compel the petitioner to change religious or political affiliation;
(3) Attempt of respondent to corrupt or induce the petitioner, a common child, or a child of the petitioner, to engage in prostitution, or connivance in such corruption or inducement;
(4) Final judgment sentencing the respondent to imprisonment of more than six years, even if pardoned;
(5) Drug addiction or habitual alcoholism, or chronic gambling of the respondent;
(6) Homosexuality of any of the spouses;
(7) Contracting by the respondent of a subsequent bigamous marriage, whether in the Philippines or abroad;
(8) Marital infidelity or perversion or having a child with another person other than one’s spouse during the marriage, except when upon the mutual agreement of the spouses, a child is born to them by in vitro or a similar procedure or when the wife bears a child after being a victim of rape;
(9) Attempt by the respondent against the life of the petitioner, a common child or a child of the petitioner; and
(10) Abandonment of petitioner and/or their children under the custody of the petitioner by respondent without justifiable cause for more than one year;
When the spouses are legally separated by Judicial decree for more than two years, either or both spouses can petition the proper court for an absolute divorce based on said Judicial decree of legal separation;
(b) Grounds for annulment of marriage under Article 45 of the Family Code of the Philippines restated as follows:
(1) The party in whose behalf it is sought to have the marriage annulled was 18 years of age or over but below 21, and the marriage was solemnized without the consent of the parents, guardian or person having substitute parental authority over the party, in that order unless after attaining the age of 21, such party freely cohabited with the other, and both lived together as husband and wife;
(2) Either party was of unsound mind, unless such party after coming to reason, freely cohabited with the other as husband and wife;
(3) The consent of either party was obtained by fraud, unless such party afterward, with full knowledge of the facts constituting the fraud, freely cohabited with the other as husband and wife;
(4) The consent of either party was obtained by force, intimidation or undue influence, unless the same having disappeared or ceased, such party thereafter freely cohabited with the other as husband and wife;
(5) Either party was physically incapable of consummating the marriage with the other, and such incapacity continues or appears to be incurable; and
(6) Either party was afflicted with a sexually transmissible infection found to be serious or appears to be incurable:
Provided, that the grounds mentioned in Nos. 2, 5 and 6 existed either at the time of the marriage or supervening after the marriage;
(c) When the spouses have been separated in fact for at least five years at the time the petition for absolute divorce is filed, and reconciliation is highly improbable;
(d) Psychological incapacity of either spouse as provided for in Article 36 of the Family Code of the Philippines, whether or not the incapacity was present at the time of the celebration of the marriage or later;
(e) When one of the spouses undergoes a gender reassignment surgery or transitions from one sex to another, the other spouse is entitled to petition for absolute divorce with the transgender or transsexual as respondent, or vice versa; and
(f) Irreconcilable marital differences and conflicts which
have resulted in the total breakdown of the marriage beyond repair, despite
earnest and repeated efforts at reconciliation, shall entitle either spouse or
both spouses to petition for
absolute divorce.
Safeguard guidelines are enumerated in the proposed measures: Thus:
(a) Absolute divorce shall be judicially decreed after the fact of an irremediably broken marital union or a marriage that is defective from the start;
(b) The state shall assure that the court proceedings for the grant of absolute divorce shall be affordable and inexpensive, particularly for court assisted litigants or petitioners;
(c) Concerned spouses have the option to file for absolute divorce under this Act or seek legal separation, annulment of marriage, or nullification of marriage under the pertinent provisions of Executive Order 209, otherwise known as the Family Code of the Philippines;
(d) The option of absolute divorce is a pro-woman legislation because, in most cases, it is the wife who is entitled to a divorce as a liberation from an abusive relationship and to help her regain dignity and self-esteem;
(e) A six-month cooling-off period is instituted after the filing of a petition for absolute divorce as a final attempt for reconciliation of concerned spouses;
(f) A divorce decree shall include provisions for the care and custody of children, protection of their legitime, termination and liquidation of the conjugal partnership of gains or the absolute community, and alimony for the petitioner; and
(g) Even as absolute divorce is instituted, the state has the role of strengthening marriage and family life by undertaking relevant prenuptial and post-matrimonial programs and activities.
The framers of the 1987 Constitution left the wisdom of legalizing divorce to Congress. Thus, the 1987 Constitution does not prohibit the legalization of divorce. Indeed, as pointed out by various women’s groups time and again, “divorce must be restored as rights-based option for majority of Filipinos, an option based on the recognition that the right to enter into a marriage contract has the corresponding spousal right to end such contract when it has reached the point of irresponsibility” (Explanatory Note, HB 838, p. 3).
Divorce does not kill a marriage. It just buries a marriage that has been long dead!!