The bill providing for absolute divorce and dissolution of marriage is an apt sequel to the Reproductive Health and Responsible Parenthood Law.

Rep. Edcel C. Lagman, who chaired the technical working group which consolidated four (4) related bills on divorce, was also the principal author and sponsor of the RH bill.

The sister measures are pro-woman legislations since the RH law guarantees a woman’s right to freely determine the number and spacing of her children and mitigates maternal death, while a divorce law liberates a wife from an abusive relationship and helps her regain dignity and self-respect.

The full implementation of the RH law will help prevent teenage pregnancies and hasty early marriages that veritably break down and end up in broken marriages.

Divorce is an exception for irremediably broken and lost marriages, and the State has a continuing mandate to protect and preserve marriage as a social institution and foundation of the family.

The following provisions in the divorce bill affirm the commitment of government to safeguard marriage:

1. One of the guiding principles is the State’s “role of strengthening marriage and family life by undertaking relevant pre-nuptial and post matrimonial programs and activities”;

2. A mandatory six-month cooling off period is prescribed after a petition for divorce is filed as a “final attempt of reconciling the concerned spouses”, except in summary judicial proceedings;

3. Reconciliation upon agreement of the spouses is recognized and effectuated even after a petition for absolute divorce has been filed or a divorce decree has been issued.

   The following are the other salient features of the bill:

   1. Assuring that the divorce proceedings will be inexpensive, affordable and efficient;

   2. There will be summary judicial proceedings for the following grounds: (1) separation de facto of five years or more; (2) one of the spouses has contracted a bigamous marriage; (3) legal separation by judicial decree of at least two years; (4) one of the spouses has been sentenced to imprisonment for six years; (5) one of the spouses has undergone sex reassignment surgery or transition from one sex to another; and (6) when there is a joint petition of the spouses based on any of the grounds for absolute divorce provided for in the Act.

      A summary judicial procedure is an expeditious process without regard to technicalities, evidence ex parte is allowed when warranted, and the decision is immediately final and executory.

   3. An OFW petitioner shall be given preference by the proper court with respect to the hearing of his/her petition, and the proper court shall set the reception of evidence upon availability of the petitioner, for not more than two consecutive days.

   4. In case of a court-assisted petitioner (previously indigent litigant), the court shall waive filing fees and other costs of litigation, appoint counsel de oficio for the petitioner and assign social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists, preferably from government concerned agencies, to assist the petitioner and the court.

   5. The divorce decree shall also provide for the care and custody of children, dissolution of the conjugal partnership of gains or community property, option for one-time alimony or periodic payment of alimony, and option for the delivery of the presumptive legitime of children at the time of the dissolution of marriage or after the death of one of the parents.

      Alimony is the support for the innocent spouse after the dissolution of the marriage and legitime is the protected inheritance of a child in the property or estate of a parent.

   6. The Office of the Public Prosecutor is authorized and obligated to conduct investigations on whether or not there is collusion between the spouses in a petition for absolute divorce.

EDCEL C. LAGMAN