With the enactment of Republic Act No. 386, also known as the “Civil Code of the Philippines,” in 1949, the absolute divorce that was instituted by Act No. 2710 during the American Occupation has been abolished. In 1977, in compliance with the signing of the Tripoli Agreement in 1976, Presidential Decree No. 1083, otherwise known as the “Code of Muslim Personal Laws of the Philippines,” was issued by then-President Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr., which included the institution of absolute divorce for Muslim Filipinos.
The provisions of the Civil Code would be amended through the issuance of Executive Order No. 209, s.1987, by then-President Corazon C. Aquino, to enact a new Family Code of the Philippines, but the newer law still did not allow absolute divorce. However, 11 days later, some of its provisions were amended to allow Filipino spouses to remarry, where a marriage between a Filipino citizen and a foreigner is validly celebrated and a divorce is thereafter validly obtained abroad by the alien spouse, capacitating him or her to remarry, and to nullify a marriage entered into by a party who has psychological incapacity at the time of the celebration of marriage to fulfill marital duties and obligations.
Since then, there have been measures filed in both Houses of Congress in an effort to reinstitute absolute divorce in the Philippines. According to its advocates, such as Senator Risa Hontiveros and Pia Cayetano and Representatives Edcel Lagman and Arlene Brosas, absolute divorce law is urgently necessary for marriages that have collapsed and are beyond repair, where the majority of the victims are the wives who have been subjected to cruelty, violence, infidelity, and abandonment; save the children from the pain, stress, and agony consequent to their parents’ constant marital clashes or irreconcilable differences; and grant the divorced spouses the right to remarry.
House Bill No. 9349 of Committee Report No. 962, otherwise known as the “Absolute Divorce Act,” has been approved on third and final reading by the House of Representatives on Wednesday, May 22, 2024, just before the sine die adjournment of the second regular session of the 19th Congress. Since the 21st century, this is at least the second time that it has been approved on third reading by the House of Representatives.
However, what they say about absolute divorce being a better option than staying in the marriage is totally erroneous and far from reality from what they are saying in order to deceive the people who have a neutral stance on divorce. Hence, let me present to you 3 main reasons we have to reject the reinstitution of absolute divorce in the Philippines.
First of all, several studies have proven that absolute divorce causes multiple negative effects on the family and on society. The Catholic Church views it as an immoral and grave offense against natural law because it introduces disorder into the family and society, which is totally correct, as such a claim is supported by several reliable studies around the world that have proven divorce to have massive negative effects on the family.
Anderson (2014) suggests that children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage, except for parents faced with unresolvable marital violence. It was also recommended that society make every effort to support healthy marriages and discourage married couples from divorcing.
In 2020, Sander et al. found that the mental health of Danish divorcees was significantly different from and worse than the Danish background population immediately following divorce; lower divorce conflict also predicted better physical health for women; and already at the time of or close to judicial divorce, higher degrees of divorce conflict are associated with worse mental health, even after accounting for other sociodemographic variables and divorce-related factors.
Even the American Psychological Association (APA) said that divorce might influence well-being, with many individuals experiencing depression, loneliness, isolation, self-esteem difficulties, or other psychological distress. Parental divorce may also have negative effects on the psychosocial adjustment of children and adolescents.
Moreover, according to Wilkinson & Finkbeiner, LLP, in 2021, researchers estimated that almost 50% of all marriages in the United States will end in divorce or separation, 41% of all first marriages end in divorce, 60% of second marriages end in divorce, and 73% of all third marriages end in divorce, which means that remarriage after divorce often leads to absolute divorce.
Moreover, Damota (2019) sought to provide detailed information about the effects of divorce on families’ lives. Children dropout out of school, engage in addiction, commit sex before marriage and develop delinquent behavior in the community they live in. Crimes, theft, and immoral acts of conduct stem from divorced families. Divorce leads custodial parents to experience major changes in their lives, including a change in residential arrangements, economic disadvantage, loneliness associated with social network changes, and role strain associated with the task overload that results from having to care for children and work outside the home. In divorced couple’s residential arrangements, economic status, social networks, and role demands lead to deterioration in physical and mental health for the majority of individuals immediately following separation.
Secondly, the majority of Filipinos oppose divorce. According to the Pew Research Center’s 2013 Global Attitudes Survey, as reported by Rappler, most Filipinos consider getting a divorce (67%) immoral. Four yearslater, Social Weather Stations conducted a survey and found that 53% of Filipinos agreed to legalize divorce in the country. However, a survey conducted and released by OCTA Research in December last year found that only 40% favored passing a law that would legalize divorce, while a narrow majority, or 51%, of Filipinos were against it. You may be asking why Filipinos flipped on absolute divorce only within a matter of 6 years.
While the recent OCTA survey asked respondents in Filipino, “Are you in favor or not in favor of passing a measure legalizing divorce here in the Philippines?”, those respondents in the 2017 Social Weather Stations survey were asked to agree or disagree with the following statement: “Married couples who have already separated and cannot reconcile anymore should be allowed to divorce so that they can get legally married again.”
It can be concluded that the Social Weather Stations firm was advocating for absolute divorce and intending to sway the Filipinos in favor of absolute divorce as an alternate modality of dissolution of marriages, which only meant that this was a skewed survey favoring absolute divorce for them to advance their despicable anti-family cause.
The third main reason is that the proposed absolute divorce measure will propagate the infamous “Vegas marriages.” Both the House and Senate Absolute Divorce Bills provide “irreconcilable marital differences” as one of the grounds for the proposed absolute divorce bill.
In other countries like Australia and the United States, this is one of the grounds that can be cited for a no-fault divorce. Different States of the latter also use the terms incompatibility and irremediable or irretrievable breakdown. Generally, the courts do not inquire into what the differences actually are, because the couple need not make accusations of wrong doing of their marital partner. Thus, both parties do not need to agree to a divorce premised on irreconcilable differences.
Lastly, divorce is redundant and unnecessary, and the absolute nullity of marriage is the way. If we are going to study closely the grounds of divorce that the advocates have been proposing, with the exception of irreconcilable differences, those grounds, such as but not limited to abandonment, criminality, repeated physical abuse or violence, habitual lying, repeated quarrels and arguments, and substance or alcohol addictions, constitute acts of psychological incapacity to perform the essential marital duties and obligations, which is a ground of the declaration of absolute nullity of marriage.
In spite of this argument that I have presented, many advocates would still contest that violence, abandonment, habitual lying, and repeated quarrels and arguments are not acts constituting psychological incapacity to perform such marital duties and obligations. Before countering such claims, we must remember
that the husband and wife are obliged to live together, observe mutual love, respect, and fidelity, and render mutual help and support. Given these marital duties and obligations, how can we say that these aforementioned acts do not constitute psychological incapacity when there is no mutual love, respect, and fidelity shown or the rendering of mutual help and support?
With the main reasons to reject the reinstitution of absolute divorce in the country, why do we still see numerous individuals and groups advocating for it? Of course, it is because the so-called social progressives want to propagate their ideologies and advance or enact their policies so they can take over the Philippines.
I am hoping that the Senate will reject this proposed bill and let it stay pending for its second reading until the termination of the 19th Congress to control the damage to our family—the basic social institution of society—and I recommend that they propose a countermeasure to this preposterous legislation by passing an amendment to the Family Code, primarily Article 36, to define the acts that constitute psychological incapacity to perform essential marital obligations, expedite its procedure, and make it more affordable, or even free, to the indigent. (JAPHETH A. IRREVERRE)
