CBCP: Why waste ‘precious time, money on unconstitutional divorce bills’?

MANILA, Philippines — The state should discuss how to fortify marriage and family life instead of “spending precious time and money on unconstitutional divorce bills.”

This was the call of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) on Tuesday with its Family and Life Office even citing Section 2, Article 15 of the 1987 Philippine Constitution that defines marriage as an “inviolable institution.”

“Without having to bother our legislators about the moral law, all we have to do is go to the Constitution, which is the mother of all legislations,” stressed Fenny Tatad of CBCP’s Family and Life Office.

“Section 2 of Article 15 defines marriage as an ‘inviolable social institution’ which means it cannot be violated by the enemies of the state, least of all by the state itself,” she also said during the Senate hearing on the proposed divorce law.

“From our clear understanding of what the Constitution says, we should be discussing various ways and means of strengthening marriage and family life, rather than spending precious time and money on unconstitutional divorce bills,” she added.

Tatad also pointed out that the Philippines being the only remaining country that has no divorce law is a “misplaced concern.”

“It seeks to remedy what to them appears to be an almost unspeakable defect – the fact that the Philippines remains the only country in the world without a divorce law, and insists on upholding the sanctity and indissolubility of marriage. We believe this is a misplaced concern,” Tatad said.

“Marriage is a human institution, rather than the creation of any legislature and should be therefore protected from any undue state interference.”

“Agnostics and atheists may not be prepared to concede the divine origin of marriage; but they cannot deny that it is a human institution, indeed the first of human institutions, which precede the state or modern idea of government,” she added. /kga