No need for a divorce law

Yes, because there is already an existing law on divorce providing adequate remedies which the authors of the divorce bill seek to give couples in irreparable marriages, or married women in abusive marital relationships who are victims of domestic violence, or aggrieved spouses in marriages where “love has gone”, as shown by the cruelty, infidelity, neglect or abandonment by the other spouse.

This existing law is found in Article 55 to 67 of the Family Code which recognizes that kind of divorce where the parties are separated and forbidden to cohabit or to live together by judgment of a court. This divorce is known as divorce a mensa et thoro (from table and bed) or “relative divorce”.

Pursuant to this law, the offended spouse can file a petition in Court praying: that the offending spouse be barred from living and co-habiting with him/her; that their absolute community or conjugal partnership of properties be dissolved and liquidated with the net share in the profits pertaining to the offending spouse being forfeited in favor of the children, or if they have no children, in favor of the offended spouse; that the custody of the minor children be given to him/her; and that the offending spouse be ordered to support them.

Indeed, this law even provides that while the petition is still pending, the offended spouse can already ask the court for support or alimony. Then, if after proper hearing it is established by competent evidence that the offending spouse is guilty of the acts complained of, a decision will be rendered by the court granting all the prayers of the offended spouse.

Once the court has issued the decree of divorce a mensa et thoro, the offending spouse shall be disqualified from inheriting from the innocent spouse by intestate succession (without a Will). If there is a Will, the provisions therein favorable to the offending spouse are considered revoked by operation of law. The innocent spouse may also revoke the donations she/she made in favor of the offending spouse, as well as the designation of the latter as beneficiary in any insurance policy even if such designation is specified as “irrevocable”.

The process in obtaining this divorce decree may indeed be tedious, difficult and expensive. But this is not enough reason to introduce another divorce bill. In fact such kind of process even ensures the preservation of the sanctity of marriage. Besides, this is more of a procedural problem remediable by the courts which can streamline the procedure and reduce the fees. To be sure special family courts have already been created to hear this kind of cases.

The sponsors should therefore tell the people that their true intentions in introducing this divorce bill are: to dissolve a perfectly valid and existing marriage thus enabling the estranged couples to get married again; and to make it as easy as possible for these couples to dissolve their marriage with the use of such flimsy, shallow and vague grounds as “irreconcilable differences” between them or “irreparable breakdown” of their marriage. This is the “Las Vegas” style of divorce that P-Noy is talking about.

Giving the estranged couples the right to remarry does not involve any element of public interest at all. It only satisfies the personal and egotistic desires of some offended spouses out to avenge the supposed wrong done to them by the offending spouse. Only those supposedly aggrieved spouses who may themselves be already involved with a “third party” would like this right to be available to them. In fact they may not be that “innocent” at all as to be entitled to this right to remarry. Giving them such right will just embolden them to be involved in a series of “love triangles” and marriages because they can always dissolve and get away from these relationships anyway, pursuant to this divorce bill.

Even if a survey is conducted right now, it will show that only a small percentage of really innocent victims of broken marriages, or those enduring unbearable marital relationship, would readily, sincerely and wholeheartedly say that remarriage is foremost in their minds. After the harrowing experience they have undergone in a nightmarish marital relationship, the last thing they would want is to enter into another kind of relationship that may end up in another nightmare. All they want is to legally separate and live apart from their offending spouse which is already provided by the existing divorce law. But because the right to remarry is made available by this divorce bill two years after legal separation, they may nevertheless take the risk of plunging into other possible nightmarish relationships after they get over their sad experience thinking that they can readily get out of it again and again and again anyway.

More objectionable is that this divorce bill affords legally married couples, the right to remarry because of “irreconcilable differences” between them or the “irreparable breakdown” of their marriage” Such phrases are as nebulous and broad as to be misused and abused. They are flimsy and self-serving excuses that make walking away from marital relationship like a “walk in the park”.

To be sure, married couples are not totally deprived of the right to remarry. They can if their marriage is annulled or declared null and void on grounds provided by the Family Code. In fact the divorce bill mentions two of them: psychological incapacity which is a ground to declare the nullity of the marriage; and de facto separation for at least five years which a ground for judicial declaration of presumptive death of the absent spouse that has the effect of dissolving the marriage bond.

Aside from being superfluous, this divorce bill is therefore directly incompatible with the concept of marriage as an “inviolable social institution” which serves as the foundation of the family which, in turn is the foundation of the nation (Sections 1 and 2 Article XV). This bill should not even be allowed to reach first base. –Jose C. Sison (The Philippine Star)

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