PRESS RELEASE
Office of Rep. Edcel C. Lagman
(LP-Albay)
0916-6406737 / 0918-9120137
05 July 2016
The enactment of an absolute divorce bill could be faster and easier than the tortuous passage of the reproductive health bill, which is now a law as R.A. No. 10354.
This is the projection of Rep. Edcel C. Lagman who filed HB No. 116 instituting absolute divorce in the Philippines.
Lagman also shepherded the approval of the RH law which he principally authored and underwent a 13-year odyssey before its approval.
Lagman said the following factors favor the early passage of the divorce bill:
Legal separation is only a step away from absolute divorce. The Family Code presently grants couples separation from bed and board without severing the marriage bond.
Annulment under the Family Code recognizes the voiding of marriages which are vitiated at the time of matrimonial celebration. The same grounds should be extended to those supervening or occurring during the marriage.
Psychological incapacity is presently a ground for annulment of marriage under Article 36 of the Family Code.
The Catholic Church has its own version of absolute divorce which is the canonical nullification of a marriage for lack of essential attributes of a sacramental union.
Historically, absolute divorce was available during the pre-Spanish times, American era, Japanese occupation and for Muslims in the Philippines.
The acrimonious debates on the health hazards of contraception and sexuality education are not on board.
No less than Pope Francis has recently called in his encyclical Amoris Laetitia or the “The Joy of Love” for more grace and liberality and less dogma in the treatment of divorced couples.
It is reasonable and practical that a valid foreign divorce secured by one of the spouses must be a ground for the other spouse in the Philippines to obtain absolute divorce.
There is no reason for maintaining matrimony where one spouse has undergone gender reassignment surgery as a transgender.
An SWS survey in December 2014 documented that 57% of women and 62% of men respondents favor the legalization of divorce.
EDCEL C. LAGMAN