Divorce, Pinoy-style

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines has always been ready for divorce, a lawmaker and women’s advocate said.

In an interview with ANC, the main proponent of the divorce bill in the House of Representatives, Gabriela Party-list Rep. Luzviminda Ilagan, said this option for couples with failed marriages is just a supplement to what is already available.

“The legal separation is already there, why don’t we just make an add-on?” she said.

According to the proposed measure, couples who may apply for divorce include those who are de facto separated for 5 years and those already legally separated for two years.

Grounds for legal separation may also apply when these same grounds have already caused the irreparable breakdown of the marriage.

In addition, psychological incapacity, causing one’s failure to comply with essential marital obligations, and irreconcilable differences causing the irreparable breakdown of the marriage are also recognized as grounds for divorce.

“The Filipino-style divorce we are introducing is not the same as the Las Vegas-style that when couples want to do it, they just go ahead and do it,” Ilagan added.

Options for failed marriages

Divorce is introduced because in legal separation, the couple remains married. Divorce will then dissolve the marriage, she said.

“Legal separation is already there, why don’t just give them the option to move on and make official the relationships they currently have,” she said.

Based on the Philippine e-Legal Forum, there are several grounds for legal separation:

– repeated violence,
– corruption and inducement,
– drug addiction,
– homosexuality,
– sexual infidelity and perversion, and,
– abandonment.

These grounds are absent in other options for couples, such as annulment and declaration of absolute nullity of marriage. The latter means that the marriage was void from the very beginning.

Grounds for annulment, according to the site, include:

– lack of parental consent,
– insanity,
– fraud,
– force or intimidation,
– impotence, and,
– a party is afflicted with a sexually-transmissible disease.

The forum says “homosexuality or physical violence, by themselves, are not sufficient to nullify a marriage. At the very least, however, these grounds may be used as basis for legal separation.”

Divorce, which breaks the rigid rule in the legal separation option, is in answer to the more expensive annulment, Ilagan said. In the latter’s case, a party has to pay at least P100,000 just to employ experts who can prove “psychological incapacity,” she added.

Divorce before

The concept of divorce has always been around, she said. The Muslim and indigenous peoples’ cultures entertain this option.

The Philippines only scrapped divorce laws when the Family Code was introduced in the 1950s. “We are not copying other countries, during the Spanish time, we already have divorce,” she added.

Ilagan admitted that the proposed measure will meet heavy disapproval from the Catholic Church and several lawmakers who have been mouthing pro-family debates in another forum: the controversial Reproductive Health Bill.

The Philippine Constitution prescribes that the state should protect the interest of the family, which is precisely why the Office of the Solicitor General is present in annulment cases.

“You don’t have to get married just so you end up in divorce…We still have to respect marriage, but why are men still unfaithful? It’s all lip service,” she added.

Curing infidelities

In fact, divorce will somehow become a cure for infidelities, she said. “People will be more careful in [preserving their marriages], because they already know that divorce is there,” she added.

She added that in mostly Roman Catholic countries where there is divorce, the rate of applications is low. We should not be afraid that the presence of divorce will break up families, she added.

Ilagan stressed that divorce is a form of empowerment for women. “They [anti-divorce advocates] should be sensitive to needs of women,” she said.

Of the number of applicants for annulment  in these countries, 92% are Roman Catholic. Of this number, 61% are women, she added. –Ira Pedrasa, abs-cbnNEWS.com