Is Divorce In The Future For The Philippines?

[i am bob]

There is much information being reported regarding the proposed Divorced Bills that have been filed - some of it accurate, some of it not. Take the following 2 news items with a grain of salt and, even though these are political reports on a political subject, please keep any comments as non-political as possible. Thanks! :whistling:

Divorce battle starts in House; 2 bills filed

By Christian V. Esguerra

Philippine Daily Inquirer

12:41 am | Saturday, January 5th, 2013

Lawmakers appear to be on a collision course over efforts to introduce a divorce law in the country, with two completely opposite bills pending in the House of Representatives.

Marikina Rep. Marcelino Teodoro has filed an “Anti-Divorce and Unlawful Dissolution of Marriage Act” seeking a “guarantee that no legislation encouraging or facilitating the dissolution of marriage and recognizing divorce shall be passed.”

Another pending bill coauthored by Gabriela Representatives Luzviminda Ilagan and Emerenciana de Jesus seeks to amend the Family Code to introduce a divorce provision, a move floated and supported by no less than Speaker Feliciano Belmonte soon after the House passed the reproductive health bill on third reading.

The Teodoro proposal “ensures that absolute divorce remains unacceptable in the Philippine legal system, and maintains that legal separation can be availed of by spouses in (a) troubled marriage.”

In the explanatory note to House Bill No. 2768, Teodoro acknowledged that “initiatives” and “legislative proposals” to introduce a divorce law in the country had a “worthy objective.”

Value of marriage

But he said these still “undermine the value of marriage by encouraging couples to put an end to their relationship instead of allowing them to reconcile immediately or fix the same over time.”

The bill imposes a penalty of imprisonment of up to six months, including a fine of up to P50,000, on a number of “prohibited acts.”

They include the issuance of a “decree of legal separation without the court taking necessary steps toward the reconciliation of spouses and without determining beforehand that reconciliation is highly improbable.”

Also prohibited is the “deliberate intent of any person and/or the prosecuting attorney assigned in a case to induce collusion between the parties, as well as encourage fabrication or suppression of evidence.”

In their bill, Ilagan and De Jesus argued that there are “many failed, unhappy marriages across all Filipino classes.”

5 grounds of divorce

“Many couples, especially from the marginalized sectors who have no access to the courts, simply end up separating without the benefit of legal processes,” they said in the explanatory note.

Their bill covers a total of five grounds for divorce, including “irreconcilable differences that have caused the irreparable breakdown of the marriage.”

A separate bill by Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares does not advocate divorce, but seeks to make annulment proceedings more “accessible and less costly” for the poor.

His proposal recognizes “spousal violence, infidelity and abandonment as presumptive psychological incapacity constituting ground for the annulment of marriage.”

“The bill aims to address the inequality and inaccessibility that have resulted from the remedy granted by the Family Code to be free from a void marriage with a spouse who has committed abusive acts of violence or infidelity or abandonment (of) his or her family,” he said in the explanatory note.

First posted 9:38 pm | Friday, January 4th, 2013

But what does the Palace say about this? According to the Inquirer...

Divorce? No way, stresses Malacañang

By Michael Lim Ubac

Philippine Daily Inquirer

2:09 am | Sunday, January 6th, 2013

President Benigno Aquino III will not touch the divorce question with a 10-foot pole.

Divorce is not just low on the Aquino administration radar, it is not on its radar screen at all, Palace officials have stressed repeatedly.

Apparently wanting to avoid a potential collision course with the Catholic Church, Malacañang on Saturday dismissed proposals to introduce divorce legislation in the country.

“Divorce is not on the radar of the administration,” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte told a radio interview when asked what the President’s position was on the two bills that have been filed in the House of Representatives seeking to either stop or allow divorce legislation.

Valte was categorical in saying that divorce legislation was not a priority of Mr. Aquino, who is a bachelor at 52.

Neither Mr. Aquino nor any Cabinet secretary was willing to discuss this in the Cabinet, she emphasized.

Soon after the House passed the reproductive health (RH) bill on third reading last month, to the great consternation of Church leaders, Speaker Feliciano Belmonte announced that divorce would be next on the House’s agenda.

Right on cue, House members started the spade work, filing divorce-related bills, although seemingly at cross purposes.

One of the House bills wants “any future enactment of any bill related to divorce” to be considered illegal, while the other is for amending the Family Code to accommodate a divorce provision.

The “Anti-Divorce and Unlawful Dissolution of Marriage” bill, authored by Marikina Rep. Marcelino Teodoro, seeks a “guarantee that no legislation encouraging or facilitating the dissolution of marriage and recognizing divorce shall be passed.”

At the opposite pole is the bill coauthored by party-list Representatives Luzviminda Ilagan and Emerenciana de Jesus (Gabriela), which seeks to amend the Family Code to introduce a divorce provision.

The Teodoro bill would ensure that absolute divorce remains unacceptable in the Philippines where, the bill’s author reasons, spouses in troubled marriages can always avail of legal separation.

In the explanatory note to his bill, Teodoro said the attempts to introduce a divorce law in the country “undermine the value of marriage by encouraging couples to put an end to their relationship instead of allowing them to reconcile immediately or fix the same over time.”

Ilagan and De Jesus argued in favor of divorce to give relief to people in so “many failed and unhappy marriages” who have no access to the courts and end up separating “without the benefit of legal processes.”

In this regard, party-list Rep. Neri Colmenares (Bayan Muna) has filed a bill which neither advocates for nor condemns divorce but seeks to make annulment more accessible to and less costly for the poor.

Valte reiterated that neither of the divorce bills was being talked about in the Cabinet, “so it’s not really on the radar.”

Mindful of Church leaders’ reaction after Mr. Aquino signed the RH bill into law on Dec. 21, Malacañang has stressed that the Aquino administration was not about to provoke Church leaders further by supporting divorce legislation.

“That’s not on the radar, that’s not being discussed [in the Palace],” said Communications Secretary Ricky Carandang, following Belmonte’s announcement that divorce would figure next on the House agenda.

“I think this is being discussed mostly by civil society groups and advocates, but we’ve always said that this was not something that we were thinking about at this point. And I can say that it’s really not something that the administration is contemplating” for the remainder of Mr. Aquino’s term, Carandang said.

[JJReyes]

Not likely. The RH bill had the strong support of the current administration and legislators because of strong pressure from overseas funding agencies. The same dynamics do not exist with the proposed divorce bill.