More Filipinos favor legalization of divorce—SWS
MANILA, Philippines—(UPDATE) Fifty percent of 1,200 adult Filipinos agree to making divorce legal in the country, results of a recent survey by Social Weather Stations showed Wednesday.
A statement by the SWS on their first quarter survey showed that half of their respondents agreed to allowing couples file for divorce while 33 percent disagreed to making divorce legal in the Philippines.
Fifty percent of adult Filipinos, according to the survey results, agreed that “married couples who have already separated and cannot reconcile anymore should be allowed to divorce so that they can get legally married again.” Thirty-three percent disagreed while 16 percent were undecided about the issue.
Results of the survey conducted from March 4 to 7, 2011 indicated “a big change from merely neutral opinion six years ago, when 43 percent agreed and 44 percent disagreed,” the SWS stated.
There was also a consistent rise in support for legal divorce, the SWS survey result showed. In Metro Manila alone, the survey stated that the support for legal divorce switched from neutral to favorable as it increased from 44 percent last May 2005 to 52 percent this year.
Support for legal divorce in Luzon rose from 51 percent to 54 percent while those from Visayas also hiked support ratings as the percentage of those who agreed to making divorce legal rose from 32 percent to 50 percent.
The percent of legal divorce supporters living in Mindanao also increased from 36 percent to 44 percent.
Filipinos categorized under class E have also shown a change in their attitude towards legal divorce as those who opposed divorce changed their minds, raising the support from 2005’s 37 percent to 45 percent.
Support also rose from the masses (class D) where the percentage of those who agreed to legal divorce rose from 42 percent to 52 percent.
Legal divorce however had decreased support ratings from class ABC as the 59 percent who agreed to it back in 2005 have gone down by 2 percent (57 percent).
Both men and women regardless of civil status showed increased support for legal divorce in the Philippines as the percentage of those who agreed rose from 44 percent to 52 percent in men. Support from the women on the other hand, rose from 41 percent to 49 percent when compared to data from 2005.
Support for legal divorce rose among single Filipinos from 45 percent to 52 percent with the percentage of women agreeing to it rising from 44 percent to 51 percent while that of men rose from 45 percent to 53 percent.
Meanwhile it also increased among those married from 41 percent to 49 percent with the married women showing increased support from 39 percent to 47 percent. Married men who supported legal divorce also rose from 43 percent to 50 percent.
Most live-in partners still favored the legalization of divorce with the 63 percent that agreed back in 2005 sliding to 62 percent this year.
Percentage of men who live with their partners that agreed to legal divorce rose from 54 percent to 63 percent while the percentage of women who agreed to it was less this year (71 percent) compared to 2005 survey data (62 percent).
The survey, which interviewed 1,200 adults, asked only one question and did not query respondents about other situations in which divorce may be sought, such as where only one spouse had called for it.
Overwhelmingly Catholic Malta voted last week in favor of legalizing divorce, leaving the Philippines and the Vatican city-state as the only places where it is still banned.
The House of Representatives, one of two chambers of the Philippine legislature, began debating a bill to legalize divorce this week amid strong opposition from the Catholic church, to which 85 percent of Filipinos adhere.
The Catholic leadership is also attempting to block passage of a proposed law that would allot state funds for a population program.
President Benigno Aquino III, who backs the population program bill, has yet to express his stand on the proposed divorce law. With AFP
