Rooting for a divorce law

By Herbert Vego

“QUICK passage seen in House for divorce bill,” says a front-page headline.

Assuming that to be prophetic, we now have a reason to believe that divorce as an alternative mode for the dissolution of marriage in the Philippines will finally be legalized.

Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, the principal author of the bill, anchors his optimism on the support of Speaker Lord Allan Velasco and on the fact that the House Committee on Population and Family Relations has endorsed the bill for plenary approval.

House Bill (HB) No. 100, the first measure on absolute divorce in the 18th Congress, was filed on July 1, 2019 and later consolidated with two succeeding divorce bills.

One recalls, however, that in 2018 or one year before the end of the 17^th Congress, a similar bill had breezed through the House of Representatives but got stranded when the Senate failed to pass its own.

Was it because President Duterte, ironically despite his annulled marriage to Elizabeth Zimmerman, had taken the anti-divorce stand?

This time in the 18^th Congress, with the Senate leadership now trying to shed off its “rubber stamp” image in view of the forthcoming 2022 elections where Senators Panfilo Lacson and Tito Sotto are running for President and Vice President, respectively, it could be a different story.

The grounds for legal separation, annulment of marriage, and nullification of marriage based on psychological incapacity under the Family Code of the Philippines are included as grounds for absolute divorce with amendments to cover post-marriage causes.

The other grounds cited by Lagman include separation in fact for at least five years at the time the petition for absolute divorce is filed; when one of the spouses undergoes a gender reassignment surgery or transitions from one sex to another; irreconcilable marital differences as defined in the bill; other forms of domestic or marital abuse which are also defined in the bill; valid foreign divorce secured by either the alien or Filipino spouse; and a marriage nullified by a recognized religious tribunal.

To quote Senator Riza Hontiveros, “Filipinos, especially women and children, should be free from abusive and loveless relationships.”

This corner agrees: Divorce would not break marriage; it would merely confirm an already “broken marriage.”

Divorced or not, any citizen could “happily separate” from spouse on mere incompatibility. But how about those who want to remarry?

Christian sects that allow divorce cite one Biblical ground – unfaithfulness. Matthew 5:32 clearly states that “a man who divorces his wife, unless she has been unfaithful, causes her to commit adultery. And anyone who marries a divorced woman also commits adultery.”

It would be presumptuous for a hopeless union to continue because of a seemingly contradictory Bible verse: “What God has joined, man must not separate” (Matthew 19:6).

On second thought, why hold God responsible for joining mismatches?

The Philippines and the Vatican (a city-state within Italy) are the only nations prohibiting absolute divorce.

I remember having interviewed the late Assemblyman Arturo Pacificador, author of the first Philippine divorce bill, in the early 1980s. It proposed three grounds for divorce: adultery on the part of the wife and concubinage on the husband’s; attempt by the respondent against the life of the petitioner; and abandonment of the petitioner by the respondent without just cause for at least five consecutive years.

“Times have so changed,” said Pacificador in his explanatory note to the bill, “that even the predominantly Catholic Italy and Brazil have passed their own divorce laws.”

Pacificador’s first two aforesaid grounds are in fact among the existing grounds for legal separation which entitles spouses to live separately without dissolving matrimony.

Surprisingly, Pacificador missed citing one of the Catholic Church’s grounds for annulment – the inability of the respondent to perform the sexual act.

The National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) – an organization of 10 non-Roman Catholic Christian sects — favors divorce, but only “as last resort if everything else fails and the dissolution of the marriage ties appear to the couple as the only possible way of redeeming themselves and their children.”

There are Catholic priests, however, who believe in divorce. One of them, Cebu-based Fr. Antonio Maria Rosales, is vocal against preserving an unhappy marriage: “Is such a marriage not a ‘death sentence’ to the couple and their children?”

Pacificador’s bill might have passed had the then First Lady Imelda Marcos not intervened. As a result, the subservient Batasang Pambansa echoed her opinion that “it could weaken the family and demoralize the children.”

From whatever angle we look at, the absence of a divorce law drives the problem of broken homes from worse to worst. Without legal remedy, estranged couples are forced to either live in with a new partner or indulge in short-time affairs. On the other hand, the incompatible couples who choose to remain under one roof due to religious bigotry are already condemned to hell on earth.

Blessed are those who think for themselves. They would rather live outside, than inside, a broken home.