Bill filed to make annulment accessible to poor

MANILA, Philippines – A militant party-list lawmaker filed yesterday a bill that would make the country’s annulment laws “accessible to the poor.”

Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares filed House Bill 3952 titled “An Act Recognizing Spousal Violence, Infidelity and Abandonment as Presumptive Psychological Incapacity Constituting a Ground for the Annulment of Marriage.”

He said the bill is “intended to make Article 36 of the Family Code, which allows the annulment of marriage on the ground of psychological incapacity, accessible to the poor.”

“Under the bill a spouse who commits spousal violence, infidelity and abandonment of family are presumed psychologically incapacitated. The presumption intends to shorten the hearings, take out the necessity of hiring psychiatrists and psychologists thereby bringing the cost of litigation up, and also avoid diverse and contrary interpretation of judges as to whether spousal violence, abandonment or infidelity constitutes psychological incapacity,” Colmenares said.

“The bill levels the field by giving those who cannot afford long litigations, lawyers, psychiatrists the opportunity to annul their unfortunate marriage with a psychologically incapacitated spouse,” he said.

He said one of the major acts of the late President Corazon Aquino when she became president was the promulgation of Article 36 of the Family Code, which allows the annulment of marriage on the ground of psychological incapacity.

The law declared that, “A marriage contracted by any party who, at the time of the celebration, was psychologically incapacitated to comply with the essential marital obligations of marriage, shall likewise be void even if such incapacity becomes manifest only after its solemnization.”

He said Article 36, “in its more than two decades of existence, was then used by spouses who have long been suffering from marital relations attended by violence, infidelity, abandonment and other acts of humiliation, pain and anguish from their offending spouses.”

He said unlike the “no fault divorce” in European and United States laws, Article 36 requires that the annulment be justified by psychological incapacity to fulfill “essential” marital obligations.

Marital obligations are defined in Article 68 of the same Code as the obligation “to live together, observe mutual love, respect and fidelity, and render mutual help and support.”

“The proceedings under Article 36, however, have proved to be expensive and discriminatory in favor of the rich and powerful who can afford to hire an array of lawyers, psychologists and psychiatrists and spend for the fees of these professionals for the one to two years that it takes for the petition to be resolved just in the first instance at the Regional Trial Court and the many more years on appeal,” Colmenares said.

The proceedings, he said, have also become complicated with different judges in different regional trial courts and different psychologists or psychiatrists, depending on whether they are witnesses for the petitioner or respondent, give different interpretations to similar acts of psychological incapacity.

Some courts require psychologists while others insist on psychiatrists who charge higher professional fees.

“Worse, judges exercise so wide a discretion often ruling against an opinion of clinical psychologists or psychiatrists on the basis of their liberal or conservative moral, rather than legal tenets,” Colmenares said.

“The appeal, if one is taken, could take years, taking its toll on the finances of the petitioners except for the rich executives, movie stars and the wealthy. In sum, the law has become a long, complicated and expensive process rendering it almost inaccessible to the poor who are similarly trapped in a void marital relation with a spouse who cannot fulfill his or her obligation to love, support, cohabit or respect his or her spouse,” he said. –Paolo Romero (The Philippine Star)