MANILA, Philippines—The rising number of annulment cases in the country has alarmed the Catholic Church, which blamed "premature marriages" for the record number of marital breakups.
According to statistics from the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), 7,753 annulment cases were filed in 2007 compared to 7,138 in 2006.
A higher number of annulment cases are expected for 2008 since over 7,100 annulment cases have already been filed from January to September alone.
Prior to 2006, the number of annulment cases never breached the 7,000-mark.
Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iniguez attributed the marital breakups to "personal immaturity," noting that almost half of the couples who filed for annulment were between 21 and 25 years old who had lived together for not more than five years.
"They just enter into a relationship, (into) an emotional involvement and they think that that's already sufficient in entering into... a marriage," said Iniguez, who chairs the public affairs committee of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines.
He also said that many young couples who married forgot to consider the long-term implications of spending the rest of their lives together.
The CBCP's National Appellate Matrimonial Tribunal (NAMT) had been asking lawmakers to raise the minimum legal marrying age from 18 years old.
NAMT chairman and Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz said raising the minimum marrying age could help minimize the number of broken marriages.
"Getting married at 18 could be disadvantageous since a person at such an age is still unripe or incapable of raising a family," Cruz earlier said.
He argued that "most people that age are still psychologically unprepared and emotionally unstable."
Cruz, however, did not specify an ideal age for marriage, saying a person should simply be mentally capable and prepared to raise a family.
The Catholic Church has opposed proposals in Congress to allow divorces.
Cruz earlier said that lawmakers should fortify marriages instead of pushing for "remedies" for broken marriages.
