After many decades, a bill has been passed by the House of Representatives legalizing divorce in the country.
A majority of members of the House last week voted on third and final reading to pass House Bill 9349, or the Absolute Divorce Act.
The vote was 131 in favor, 109 against, with 20 abstentions.
The Bill now goes to the Senate, where a version has been parked for decades.
Various bills calling for the legalization of divorce in the Philippines have been filed in various congresses since the 1960s but the strong Roman Catholic Church has always opposed it.
Until the Bill becomes law, the only options for couples seeking to end marriage is to either have their union annulled if it was Church-sanctioned or file for legal separation. In both cases neither party is still allowed to legally re-marry.
However, annulment costly process allowing only the rich to legally re-marry in the Philippines.
Rep. Edcel Lagman, author of the Bill, said the newly-passed Bill signified a shift in societal attitudes towards marriage and relationships.
In legalizing divorce, the Philippines acknowledges the need to provide options for individuals trapped in “unhappy and irreparable marriages,” said Lagman.
The president of the opposition Liberal Party said: “As the only country in the world besides the Vatican where divorce is still illegal, this is a clear and resounding victory and signals the imminent liberation for Filipino wives who are entombed in toxic, abusive, and long-dead marriages.”
Lagman, however, made clear that the Bill does not recognize “no fault, quickie drive-thru, email, or notarial divorces” because there are limited and specific grounds for divorce. A petition will have to undergo judicial scrutiny to prevent abuse and collusion of the parties.
The Bill can expect to have a champion in the Senate in the person of Sen. Imee Marcos, who had previously spoken in favor of allowing legalized divorce in the Philippines.
The Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines, on the other hand, is still expected to put up a fight to stop the Bill becoming law.
The Church hailed the congressmen who opposed the Bill as heroes for protecting the sanctity of marriage.
Among the grounds for absolute divorce under the Lagman bill are psychological incapacity, irreconcilable differences, domestic or marital abuse, when either spouse undergoes sex reassignment surgery or transitions from one sex to another, and separation of the spouses for at least five years.
The Bill also recognizes the grounds for legal separation under the Family Code of the Philippines, including:
∙ Physical violence or grossly abusive conduct directed against the petitioner, a common child, or a child of the petitioner;
∙ Physical violence or moral pressure to compel the petitioner to change religious or political affiliation;
∙ Attempt of respondent to corrupt or induce the petitioner, a common child, or a child of the petitioner to engage in prostitution;
∙ Final judgment sentencing the respondent to imprisonment of more than six years;
∙ Drug addiction, habitual alcoholism, or chronic gambling;
∙ Homosexuality of the respondent;
∙ Contracting by the respondent of a subsequent bigamous marriage;
∙ Marital infidelity or perversion of having a child with another person other than one’s spouse during the marriage;
∙ Attempt by the respondent against the life of the petitioner, a common child, or a child of the petitioner; and
∙ Abandonment of petitioner by respondent without justifiable cause for more than one year
The following grounds for annulment of marriage under the Family Code of the Philippines are also grounds for absolute divorce: lack of parental consent, insanity, fraud, force, intimidation or undue influence, impotence, and sexually transmitted diseases.
Valid foreign divorces secured by either the foreigner or Filipino spouse are recognized under the bill.
