The House Committee on Population and Family Relations chaired by Isabela Representative Ian Paul Dy approved in principle House Bills 78, 1021, 1593, 2593, 3843, 3885, 4957 and 4998, which seek to reinstitute divorce as an alternative mode for dissolving marriages and strengthen the civil effects of church annulment.
Negros Occidental Representative Juliet Marie de Leon Ferrer, co-author of HB 78, sought urgent approval of the measure, stating that couples should have the “less expensive and less cumbersome” option of divorce.
Albay Representative Edcel Lagman, author of HB 78, stressed that divorce should only be necessary in exceptional cases for couples who have toxic and irreparably dysfunctional marriages.
Lagman took note that countries around the world have varying degrees of liberality in their laws regarding absolute divorce.
HB 78 is similar to the comprehensive bill filed in the 17th Congress which was already approved on Third and Final Reading.
TINGOG Party-list Representative Jude Acidre, co-author of HB 1593 with Representative Yedda Marie Romualdez, explained that the filed measure proposes to recognize the civil effects of church annulments.
“Once this bill becomes a law, a declaration of nullity decreed by the Church will hold as much weight and have the same effect as the civil annulment.”
“Once this bill becomes a law, a declaration of nullity decreed by the Church will hold as much weight and have the same effect as the civil annulment. This removes the burden of undergoing the civil annulment procedure,” Acidre said.
“Allowing for the dissolution of marriage through divorce, and including grounds that do not require the husband and their wife to further squabble and wash their dirty laundry in public, so to speak, is the best way forward.”
Davao del Norte Representative Pantaleon Alvarez, author of HB 4998, stated that “married couples should be allowed to correct the error of our jurisdiction’s lack of a realistic and non-adversarial remedy,” adding that “allowing for the dissolution of marriage through divorce, and including grounds that do not require the husband and their wife to further squabble and wash their dirty laundry in public, so to speak, is the best way forward.”
Alvarez also manifested his support for the proposal of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples’ (NCIP), as relayed by Legal Affairs Office Atty. Adrienne Dunuan, for the culture and tradition of the cultural communities on the matter of divorce be considered in the proposed measures.
Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) Gender and Development Senior Specialist Armando Orcilla Jr. said that these measures address the recommendation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and that reinstituting divorce is part of the priority legislative agenda for women in the 19th Congress.
A Technical Working Group, to be headed by Lagman, was created to consolidate the measures into one substitute bill.
