House looking at ‘socially acceptable’ options for broken marriages — Cayetano

MANILA, Philippines — Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano on Thursday gave assurance that lawmakers are thinking of ways to make the dissolution of broken marriages more “socially acceptable.”

Cayetano made the remark as the push to institutionalize divorce moves with the approval of the House committee on population and family relations of House Bill No. 100 or the Absolute Divorce Bill of 2019.

“Nag-usap kami kahapon, ang very clear po ang consensus ng Kongreso (We talked yesterday and it’s very clear that the consensus in the House), it’s not about being pro- or anti-divorce. It’s about impossible marriages,” Cayetano told reporters in Tarlac.

“Kung meron pong mag-asawa na araw-araw binubugbog yung asawa, meron pong mag-asawa, yung isa nasa Hong Kong, yung isa nasa Singapore, pareho nang may ibang pamilya, meron pong mga impossible marriages, yung solusyon dun, is it annulment? Yun ang hinahanap natin,” he added.

(If there are couples wherein one is frequently abused; there are couples that one is in Hong Kong while the other is in Singapore, they both have families. There are impossible marriages, is annulment the solution for that? That’s what we want to know.)

But Cayetano said lawmakers are still looking for options other than divorce, for as long as these are acceptable as socially as possible “because we don’t want to create a solution that is worst than the problem.”

In October 2019, Cayetano said he does not believe that absolute divorce is the solution to dysfunctional marriages, but assured that he would not stop any committee from deliberating about it.

The controversial bill managed to get the approval of the House of Representatives in the 17th Congress but faced a dead end in the Senate.

“Tanggapin natin na kapag absolute divorce ay inilatag natin kaagad, baka mas marami talagang magkahiwalay at kawawa po yung mga walang trabaho na spouse yung nasa bahay. Yun po mga tinitignan namin,” Cayetano said.

(Let us accept that if we offer absolute divorce, there could be more couples who choose to separate and the person who does not have a job would be left behind. That’s what we are looking at.)

Option for couples

Other House lawmakers, however, are optimistic about the odds of the bill in the 18th Congress.

Gabriela Party-list Rep. Arlene Brosas on Thursday said that the institution of divorce in the country would not remove the option of annulment.

“Nandun pa rin naman yung annulment. Nandun pa rin yung nullity of marriage. At nandun pa rin yung legal separation. One of the options is divorce. It’s about time para magkaroon na ng divorce sa Pilipinas,” Brosas said in a press briefing.

(Annulment is still there. There is still nullity of marriage. There is still legal separation. One of the options is divorce. It’s about time to have divorce in the Philippines.)

Bayan Muna Party-list Rep. Carlos Zarate also said that the proposed version of divorce here in the Philippines is different from that of other countries such as the United States.

“Ang realidad naman ngayon, maraming mga couples na naghihiwalay for different reasons so kung pagbabatayan lang natin ang kasalukuyang mga batas, ang sabi nga nila, napaka anti-poor dahil you have to go through a long process, gumastos ka sa psychiatrist, psychologist,” Zarate said.

(The reality is a lot of couples separate for different reasons so if we will just depend on our current laws, many say that it is very anti-poor because you have to go through a long process and spend on psychiatrists and psychologists.)

‘Practically unnecessary’

Currently, a technical working group (TWG) under the House committee on population and family relations is tasked to consolidate other proposals and inputs from resource persons regarding divorce.

But once the bill is brought to plenary, it will still face the scrutiny of lawmakers who are against it.

CIBAC Party-list Rep. Eduardo “Bro. Eddie” Villanueva labeled the bill as “practically unnecessary”, saying that instituting divorce in the country will not solve the real issues of those wishing to get out of their marriage.

Villanueva argued that there are already laws in place to address the issue of a broken marriage, making the bill on divorce “unnecessary.”

“Worse, it just makes marriage ‘cheap’ because the grounds it qualifies as bases for divorce are shallow and not in favor of the strengthening of the families – which is what the Constitution and various jurisprudence of the court decree,” the lawmaker said in a statement.

EDV