We need a divorce law

EVERYMAN

We need a divorce law

By Val Abelgas

With two young senators admitting that they have parted ways with their respective spouses, another young and separated senator, Pia Cayetano, said last week it’s about time discussions on the proposed divorce bill be resumed.

Cayetano, who has been separated from her husband for eight years now and going through the rigorous process of annulment, said: “I really think it’s high time for the divorce bill.”

“It is traumatic to go through annulment because under our Philippine laws, you have to blame someone, you have to say you’re incapacitated, you’re saying that this marriage never existed, which is not true,” she said.

“Ask anyone, I’m sure at some point in time whether it’s one year or 10 years or 20 years, they loved each other, so why can’t you call it what it is? We loved each other, something went wrong, it’s done. Why will you say it never existed?” she asked.

In July 2010, encouraged by the recent overwhelming approval in a referendum of the proposed divorce law in Malta, Gabriela party list Representatives Luz Ilagan and Emmi de Jesus revived House Bill 1799, entitled “An Act Introducing Divorce in the Philippines.”

Malta, a small island nation below the Italian peninsula, is 95 percent Catholic while the Philippines is 81 percent Catholic.

HB 1799 seeks to give couples in irreparable marriages a legal remedy in addition to laws on legal separation and annulment.

Under Ilagan’s bill, divorce may be filed if the petitioner has been separated de facto from his or her spouse for at least five years and reconciliation is highly improbable; if the petitioner has been legally separated from his or her spouse for at least two years and reconciliation is highly improbable; when any of the grounds for legal separation has caused the irreparable breakdown of the marriage; when one or both spouses are psychologically incapacitated to comply with the essential marital obligations; or when the spouses suffer from irreconcilable differences that have cause the irreparable breakdown of the marriage.

The divorce bill was first introduced in the 11th Congress, about the same time the RH bill was filed, making them the most contentious, yet unresolved measures in the last 12 years.

Indeed, the country has been kept in the dark primarily because of the stubborn stand of the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines against it. The Church has remained blind to the realities of modern Philippine society.

Extreme poverty, lack of education, financial problems, prolonged separation in the case of couples where one or both are working abroad, and other social ills that were not prevalent until about a few decades ago, are putting many marriages in the Philippines under tremendous pressure.

A big majority of our national leaders, including the lawmakers on whose hands fall the authority to pass such law, are men who want to enjoy the best of both worlds—keeping their family intact while enjoying the benefits of infidelity.

It is not a coincidence that those pushing for the divorce bill in Congress are women. It is also not a coincidence that all over the world, a big percentage of those filing for divorce are women. It is not difficult to understand that in most failed marriages, it is the women who suffer more—victims of domestic abuse and violence, and neglected or abandoned by philandering or alcoholic husbands. Many of these women suffer in silence in the Philippines.

Many couples have irreparable differences that lead to almost daily verbal and physical abuse. And yet, they remain living together for lack of a law that would allow them to legally and properly part ways, and seek the peace and happiness that they couldn’t find in their present partner.

Many couples have simply lost the love that brought them before the altar or before a marriage minister, and have found instead contempt and sadness. And yet, they are confined to their hopeless situation because of the lack of a divorce law.

Opponents of divorce say there are legal remedies for these people stuck in failed marriages: legal separation, annulment and declaration of nullity. But these options are not enough.

In the first remedy, a decree rendered by a court allows spouses to live separately. But they remain married to each other. The woman may be charged with adultery or the man with concubinage if they cohabit with other partners.

The problem with annulment of voidable marriage and declaration of nullity of marriage is that most of the grounds are difficult to prove and require a lot of money to prove before the court.

Meanwhile, the average Maria has to continue to suffer psychologically and physically from her marriage to an abusive and irresponsible husband.

The Roman Catholic Church claims unfounded fears that the legalization of divorce would result in the increase in the number of broken homes and marriages.

But perhaps the millions of broken homes and marriages could reflect on its inability to nurture the moral values of its flock.

Mr. Abelgas is a former managing editor of Manila Standard.